Threadbare Read online

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1: Vick — Not Quite Up to Specs

  Chapter 2: Kelly — Meeting of the Minds

  Chapter 3: Vick — Role Reversal

  Chapter 4: Kelly — Selective Memory

  Chapter 5: Vick — Control Factors

  Chapter 6: Kelly — Homecoming

  Chapter 7: Vick — Too Close For Comfort

  Chapter 8: Kelly — Hearts and Minds

  Chapter 9: Vick — Questions of Character

  Chapter 10: Kelly — One Night, One Week, One Lifetime

  Chapter 11: Vick — Venting

  Chapter 12: Kelly — Storm Before the Calm

  Chapter 13: Vick — Dropping Hints

  Chapter 14: Kelly — Home Front

  Chapter 15: Vick — Emotional Adjustment

  Chapter 16: Kelly — Innocence Lost

  Chapter 17: Vick — Dawn and Darkness

  Chapter 18: Kelly — Binding Ties

  Chapter 19: Vick — Half a Pair

  Chapter 20: Kelly — For Love

  Chapter 21: Vick — Half a Heart

  Chapter 22: Kelly — Out of Mind, Out of Sight

  Chapter 23: Vick — Choice and Consequence

  Chapter 24: Kelly — Rough Start

  Chapter 25: Vick — Matter of Perspective

  Chapter 26: Kelly — Forced Entry

  Chapter 27: Vick — Not-So-Sound Body and Mind

  Chapter 28: Kelly — Click Three Times

  Chapter 29: Vick — Reunion

  Chapter 30: Kelly — Real Tin Men

  Chapter 31: Vick — Payback

  Chapter 32: Kelly — Revelation

  Chapter 33: Vick — Overload

  Chapter 34: Kelly — Cut Off

  Chapter 35: Vick — By a Thread

  Chapter 36: Kelly — Full of Surprises

  Chapter 37: Vick — Dual Input

  Chapter 38: Kelly — Confession

  Chapter 39: Vick — Resurrection

  Chapter 40: Kelly — Moral Dilemma

  Chapter 41: Vick — To the Rescue

  Chapter 42: Kelly — Trial and Error

  Chapter 43: Vick — What Makes Us Human?

  Chapter 44: Kelly — Déjà vu

  Chapter 45: Vick — Starting Over

  About the Author

  By Elle E. Ire

  Visit DSP Publications

  Copyright

  Threadbare

  By Elle E. Ire

  Storm Fronts: Book One

  All cybernetic soldier Vick Corren wanted was to be human again. Now all she wants is Kelly. But machines can’t love. Can they?

  With the computerized implants that replaced most of her brain, Vick views herself as more machine than human. She’s lost her memory, but worse, can no longer control her emotions, though with the help of empath Kelly LaSalle, she’s holding the threads of her fraying sanity together.

  Vick is smarter, faster, impervious to pain… the best mercenary in the Fighting Storm, until odd flashbacks show Vick a life she can’t remember and a romantic relationship with Kelly that Vick never knew existed. But investigating that must wait until Vick and her team rescue the Storm’s kidnapped leader.

  Someone from within the organization is working against them, threatening Kelly’s freedom. To save her, Vick will have to sacrifice what she values most: the last of her humanity. Before the mission is over, either Vick or Kelly will forfeit the life she once knew.

  To my amazing, talented, understanding, supportive spouse—being married to another published author certainly keeps life interesting, but I know when you encourage me, when you remind me I can do this, when you share your sympathy, you really GET IT. This one was a long time coming. Thanks for your confidence in Vick’s story and in me every step of the way. I love you beyond words, and for a writer, that’s saying a lot.

  Author’s Note

  SPECIAL THANKS go to Jennifer Lindman, without whom the character of Vick wouldn’t have been created. Though Vick went through a lot of changes before this final version, Jen is responsible for helping me give her initial life.

  Thanks to my writing group, both current and former members, especially author Jan Eldredge and Amy Paulshock for reading early drafts, Mark Chick for his fight choreography expertise, and Ann Meier and Gary and Evergreen Lee for help with queries and blurbs. Thank you also to author Vivi Barnes for beta reading and giving positive feedback when I needed it to keep trying, and author Gini Koch for all her encouragement along the way. Also thanks go to all my friends and family who kept me sane throughout this long, crazy process.

  Extra special thanks to my agent, Naomi Davis, who believed in this book from the get-go and dauntlessly stuck with it until it found its home. She is the best adviser, negotiator, and cheerleader a writer could ever hope for. Also much gratitude to publisher Lynn West, my editors Rose, Yv, and Brian (any mistakes left are mine, all mine), my cover artist Nathalie Gray who captured my internal vision of Vick so accurately I wondered if she had invaded my dreams, and all the other wonderful people at DSP Publications.

  Last but not least, one more thanks to my family for their support, especially author and Nebula Award finalist Jose Pablo Iriarte for being my first, middle, and last reader always. Without him, I would have given up a long time ago.

  Chapter 1: Vick — Not Quite Up to Specs

  I AM a machine.

  “VC1, your objective is on the top floor, rear bedroom, moving toward the kitchen. Rest of the place scans as empty.”

  “Acknowledged.” I study the high-rise across the street, my artificial ocular lenses filtering out the sunlight and zooming in on the penthouse twelve stories up. A short shadow passes behind white curtains. My gaze shifts to the gray, nondescript hovervan parked beside me. In the rear, behind reinforced steel, my teammate Alex is hitting the location with everything from x-rays to infrared and heat sensors.

  Our enemies have no backup we’re aware of, but it doesn’t hurt to be observant.

  I switch focus to Lyle, the driver, then Kelly in the passenger seat. Lyle stares straight ahead, attention on the traffic.

  Kelly tosses me a smile, all bright sunshine beneath blonde waves. My emotion suppressors keep my own expression unreadable.

  Except to her.

  Kelly’s my handler. My counterbalance. My… companion. My frie—

  I can’t process any further. But somewhere, deep down where I can’t touch it, I want there to be more.

  More what, I don’t know.

  Midday traffic rushes by in both directions—a four-lane downtown road carrying a mixture of traditional wheeled vehicles and the more modern hovercrafts. As a relatively recent colonization, Paradise doesn’t have all the latest tech.

  But we do.

  Shoppers and businessmen bustle past. My olfactory sensors detect too much perfume and cologne, can identify individual brand names if I request the info. I pick up and record snippets of conversation, sort and discard them. The implants will bring anything mission relevant to my immediate attention, but none of the passersby are aware of what’s going on across the street.

  None of them thinks anything of the woman in the long black trench coat, either. I’m leaning against the wall between the doctors’ offices and a real estate agency. No one notices me.

  “Vick.” Kelly’s voice comes through the pickups embedded in my ear canals.

  She’s the only one who calls me that, even in private. I get grudgingly named in the public arena, but on the comm, to everyone else, I’m VC1.

  A model number.

  “The twelve-year-old kidnap victim is probably getting a snack. He’s hungry, Vick. He’s alone and scared.” She’s painting a picture
, humanizing him. Sometimes I’m as bad with others as Alex and Lyle are toward me. “You’re going to get him out.” A pause as we make eye contact through the bulletproof glass.

  “Right,” I mutter subvocally.

  Even without the touch of pleading in her voice, failure is not an option. I carry out the mission until I succeed or until something damages me beyond my capability to continue.

  Kelly says there’s an abort protocol that she can initiate if necessary. We’ve never had to try it, and given how the implants and I interact, I doubt it would work.

  “Team Two says the Rodwells have arrived at the restaurant,” Alex reports in a rich baritone with a touch of Earth-island accent.

  The kidnappers, a husband and wife team of pros, are out to lunch at a café off the building’s lobby. Probably carrying a remote trigger to kill the kid in their condo if they suspect a rescue attempt or if he tries to escape. They’re known for that sort of thing. Offworlders with plenty of toys of their own and a dozen hideouts like this one scattered across the settled worlds. Team Two will observe and report, but not approach. The risk is too great.

  Which means I have maybe forty-five minutes to get in and extract the subject.

  No. Rescue the child. Right.

  “Heading in.” My tone comes out flat, without affectation. I push off from the wall, ignoring the way the rough bricks scrape my palms.

  “Try to be subtle this time,” Lyle says, shooting me a quick glare out the windshield. “No big booms. We can’t afford to tip them off.”

  Subtlety isn’t my strong suit, but I don’t appreciate the reminder. Two years of successful mission completions speak for themselves.

  I turn my gaze on him. He looks away.

  I have that effect on people.

  The corner of my lip twitches just a little. Every once in a while an emotion sneaks through, even with the suppressors active.

  I’m standing on the median, boots sinking into carefully cultivated sod, when Kelly scolds me. “That wasn’t very nice.” Without turning around, I know she’s smiling. She doesn’t like Lyle’s attitude any better than I do.

  My lips twitch a little further.

  Thunder rumbles from the east, and a sudden gust of wind whips my long hair out behind me. Back at base, it would be tied in a neat bun or at least a ponytail, but today I’m passing for civilian as much as someone like me can. I tap into the local weather services while I finish crossing the street.

  Instead of meteorological data, my internal display flashes me an image of cats and dogs falling from the sky.

  This is what happens when you mix artificial intelligence with the real thing. Okay, not exactly. I don’t have an AI in my head, but the sophisticated equipment replacing 63 percent of my brain is advanced enough that it has almost developed a mind of its own.

  It definitely has a sense of humor and a flair for metaphor.

  Cute.

  The house pets vanish with a final bark and meow.

  The first drops hit as I push my way through glass doors into the lobby, and I shake the moisture from my coat and hair. Beneath the trench coat, metal clinks softly against metal, satisfying and too soft for anyone around me to pick up.

  The opulent space is mostly empty—two old ladies sitting on leather couches, a pair of teenagers talking beside some potted plants. Marble and glass in blacks, whites, and grays. Standard high-end furnishings.

  “May I help you?” Reception desk, on my left, portly male security guard behind it, expression unconcerned. “Nasty weather.” A flash of lightning punctuates his pleasantries.

  Terraforming a world sadly doesn’t control the timing of its thunderstorms.

  My implants reduce the emotion suppressors, and I attempt a smile. Kelly assures me it looks natural, but it always feels like my face is cracking. “I’m here to see….” My receptors do a quick scan of the listing behind him—the building houses a combination of residences and offices. If we’d had more time, we could have set this up better, but the Rodwells have switched locations twice already, and we only tracked them here yesterday.

  “Doctor Angela Swarzhand,” I finish faster than the guard can pick up the hesitation. “I’m a new patient.”

  The guard smiles, and I wonder if they’re friends. “That’s lovely. Just lovely. Congratulations.”

  “Um, thanks.” I’m sure I’ve missed something, but I have no idea what.

  He consults the computer screen built into the surface of his desk, then points at a bank of elevators across the black-marble-floored lobby. “Seventh floor.”

  “Great. Where are the stairs?” I already know where they are, but I shouldn’t, so I ask.

  The guard frowns, forehead wrinkling in concern. “Stairs? Shouldn’t someone in your condition be taking the elevator?”

  “My condition?”

  “Vick.” Kelly’s warning tone tries to draw my attention, but I need to concentrate.

  “Not now,” I subvocalize. If this guy has figured out who, or rather what I am, things are going to get messy and unsubtle fast. My hand slips beneath my coat, fingers curling around the grip of the semiautomatic in its shoulder holster.

  “You’re pregnant.” The giggle in Kelly’s voice registers while I stare stupidly at the guard.

  “I’m what?” Sooner or later this guy is bound to notice the miniscule motions of my lips, even speaking subvocally.

  Alex replaces Kelly on the comm. “Dr. Swarzhand is an obstetrician. She specializes in high-risk pregnancies. The guard thinks you’re pregnant. Be pregnant. And fragile.”

  Oh for fuck’s sake.

  I blink a couple of times, feigning additional confusion. “My condition! Right.” I block out the sound of my entire team laughing their asses off. “I’m still not used to the idea. Just a few weeks along.” I don’t want to take the damn elevator. Elevators are death traps. Tiny boxes with one way in and one way out. Thunder rumbles outside. If the power fails, I’ll be trapped. My heart rate picks up. The implants initiate a release of serotonin to compensate, and the emotion suppressors clamp down. Or try to.

  In my ears, one-third of the laughter stops. “It’ll be okay, Vick.” Kelly, soft and soothing.

  Of course she knows. She always knows.

  “Just take it up to the seventh floor and walk the rest of the way. It’s only for a few seconds, a minute at most. It won’t get stuck. I promise.”

  “Thanks,” I say aloud to the guard and turn on my heel, trying to stroll and not stomp. “You can’t promise that,” I mutter under my breath.

  “It’ll be okay,” she says again, and I’m in the waiting lift, the doors closing with an ominous thunk behind me.

  The ride is jerky, a mechanical affair rather than the more modern antigrav models. I grit my teeth, resisting the urge to talk to my team. Alex and Lyle wouldn’t see the need to comfort a machine, anyway.

  Figures the one memory I retain from my fully human days is the memory of my death, and the one emotion my implants fail to suppress every time is the absolute terror of that death.

  When the chime announces my arrival on seven and the doors open, I’m a sweating, hyperventilating mess. I stagger from the moving coffin, colliding with the closest wall and using it to keep myself upright.

  There’s no one in the hallway, or someone would be calling for an ambulance by now.

  “Breathe, Vick, breathe,” Kelly whispers.

  I suck in a shaky breath, then another. My vision clears. My heart rate slows. “I’ve got it.”

  “I know. But count to ten, anyway.”

  Despite the need to hurry, I do it. If I’m not in complete control, I can make mistakes. If I make mistakes, the mission is at risk. I might fail.

  A door on the right opens and a very pregnant woman emerges, belly protruding so far she can’t possibly see her feet. She takes one look at me and frowns.

  “Morning sickness,” I explain, grimacing at the thought on multiple levels. Even if I wanted kids for some i
nsane reason, I wouldn’t be allowed to have them. Machines don’t get permission to procreate.

  The pregnant lady offers a sympathetic smile and disappears into the elevator. At the end of the hall, the floor-to-ceiling windows offer a view of sheeting rain and flashing lightning, and I shudder as the metal doors close behind her. I head for the stairwell—the nice, safe, stable, I’m-totally-in-control-of-what-happens stairwell.

  “Walk me through it,” I tell Alex. I pass the landing for the eleventh floor, heading for the twelfth.

  “The penthouse takes up the entire top level,” his voice comes back. “Figures. No one to hear the kid call for help. Stairwell opens into the kitchen. Elevator would have let you off in a short hallway leading to the front door.”

  Which is probably a booby-trapped kill chute. No thanks.

  “Security on the stairwell door?”

  A pause. “Yep. Plenty of it too. Jamming and inserting a playback loop in the cameras now. Sensors outside the door at ankle height, both right and left. Not positive what they trigger. Could be a simple alarm. Could be something else.”

  Could be something destructive goes unsaid. I might have issues with my emotions, but that doesn’t make me suicidal. At least not anymore. Besides, with the kid walking around loose in the penthouse apartment, all the doors have to have some kind of aggressive security on them. Otherwise he would have escaped by now.

  “Whatever it is, I won’t know unless you trip it,” Alex adds.

  Oh, very helpful. I’m earning my pay today.

  My internal display flashes an image of me in ballet shoes, en pointe, pink tutu and all.

  Keeping me on my toes. Right. Funny. I didn’t ask for your input.

  The display winks out.

  I take eight more steps, round the turn for the last flight to the top floor, and stop. My hand twitches toward the compact grenade on my belt, but that would be overkill. No big booms. Right. Give me the overt rather than the covert any day. But I don’t get to choose.

  I verify the sensor locations, right where Alex said they’d be. He’s right. No indication of what they’re connected to.