Kaiden Read online

  Kaiden jerked his attention aside, forcing the invasive digital voice away. Why do I know all of this stuff about people? Why can’t I just look at a person and only see their face? This is worse than psychic intrusion. At least they’re able to fight that off with a strong mind.

  Ever since his awakening, Kaiden had been cursed with the gift of accessing all ports of knowledge on the galactic-wide interweb, public and confidential. He’d asked Jem to restrict his ability once, but his systems automatically patched into the ship’s databases.

  “Tell me what’s bothering you, Kaiden. I’m here for your benefit, and I can’t help if you don’t talk to me.”

  “What if I’m not Kaiden? What if I’m some sort of simulacrum here to confuse all of you? We both know what happened two years ago on the Jemison, Doctor.”

  “So you would prefer if I continued to assess you daily for changes to your neurological software patterns?”

  “Aye, that would be great, sir.”

  Xander grew silent as he turned to appraise the data on the holographic screen beside him. The angle made it impossible for Kaiden to read it visually, but with great focus, he blocked it virtually from his mind.

  The doctor turned back to him a moment later. “No.”

  “But why not?” Kaiden’s grip tightened on the arms of his chair. The metal squeaked beneath his hands.

  “We’re not here to enable you. We’re here to help you and provide the support you need. You’re not a machine. You are a living, breathing, thinking human being.”

  “What if something changes and I feel differently?”

  “My door is always open to you, day or night, regardless of whether I’m on duty or not. Please remember that. As we’ll be decreasing the frequency of our visits, I’d like for you to agree to see Doctor Oshiro three times a week now. Is that acceptable?”

  “I like Doctor O,” Kaiden replied.

  “As do I. He believes you’ve shown immense progress. I do, too. We all do.”

  “Thank you.” Kaiden remained in the seat.

  “Do you have any other concerns?”

  Kaiden swallowed heavily. “Nothing of dire importance at the moment, sir.”

  “I won’t press you to speak with me, but if it does become important, you’re welcome to come back at any time or to seek me at my stateroom. You know the way?”

  Kaiden nodded.

  Why won’t you tell Xander what troubles you? Jem asked suddenly.

  It isn’t important. Besides, he’ll believe that I’m calling him a liar.

  No, not a liar. You are troubled by the state of your mind, Kaiden. Xander would want to know so that he could set your worries to rest.

  A chime drew Xander’s attention to his console again. He read it briefly, and then his features lit up with a broader smile. “Oh, I’ve got fantastic news for you. Lilibeth has devised a way for you to resume a normal diet. Semi-normal at least. You’ll still have some dietary restrictions until the new cloned kidneys and liver have completed their growth cycle. Gareth’s donation speeded that process along nicely.”

  “She has? I can eat a burger again?”

  “Eventually, yes. She’s rather eager to show you, so stop by and see her in the laboratory on your way out. She and Katherine will update you on the clone status, too.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  Kaiden left the office with renewed hope. The scientists may have violated and desecrated his body, but they hadn’t taken his soul. With the dawn of each day, his sense of self improved and he felt closer to becoming the man his friends and family once knew.

  Chapter Two

  Six Months Later

  “Does anyone else want a drink?” Angela called from the small bar. “They finally restocked the apple cider.”

  Kaiden read in silence from a recliner across the room, disinterested in their movie but present for the ambience of sitting among his fellow crewmen for a while. Human beings carried energy and sitting in their company—even to blow them off for a book—had a recharging quality he needed. It helped him thrive, reminding him he was one of the pack. Alive.

  “Yeah, I could use another,” Jean-Claude said. The lanky medical technician had been slouched between Angela and Daksha on the sofa where the pair watched an old-fashioned horror flick with their friends, riveted to the terrifying scene. The screen spanned the entire wall of the crew lounge, with hyper-definition and minor holographic elements.

  “Aren’t you gonna watch this with us?” Gareth called to Kaiden. “It’s getting good.”

  “No thanks. I’ve seen it twice already, but I’m stoked for the sequel. Heard the ghosts are gonna be scarier.”

  “I heard a guy died while watching this one, and that his entire family went missing the next day,” Daksha said.

  Angela snickered from the bar. “Well, I think they’re just trying to cash—ah!” Foam sprayed from the cappuccino machine and the room plunged into darkness.

  A datapad screen flared on from Gareth’s location, providing minimal light.

  “Good job, Angie. You broke the power to the entire room,” Daksha said.

  “I didn’t do anything! I just touched the button on the dispenser,” she insisted.

  “Hey, why aren’t the emergency lights coming on? Jem?” Gareth called. “Something blew in here.”

  Red lights flickered to life and bathed the lounge in the low glow. The semi-translucent video screen buzzed with static.

  “Crap, the movie won’t start up.” Jean-Claude tapped the console in his armrest a few times. “Must have fried it.”

  “Kaiden, wanna give me a hand?” Gareth asked.

  “Hey, what’s that?”

  A fuzzy silhouette moved on the screen, then thin, elongated limbs stretched out. It leaned out from the flat panel with its mouth yawning open, its barbed tongue outstretched from a gaping, tooth-filled hole.

  “Isn’t the power off?” Jean-Claude asked.

  “Nah, emergency power is on, so only certain elements around the ship should have juice,” Gareth said. He glanced around the room then tapped on the pad.

  “Then what’s that on the screen?” Daksha demanded. “What is that? It’s coming out. Oh God, it’s coming out!”

  “That can’t be real,” Angela breathed.

  The skeletal alien creature jumped away from the screen and landed within feet of the chairs. Petrified, Jean-Claude didn’t move. Neither did Kaiden.

  “Jem, let us out! Let us out!”

  Shrieking, Daksha fumbled her glass of cider between both hands until its contents spilled over her lap. Angela rushed for the exit, while Gareth leapt over the back of the sofa and joined her. He pounded on the door.

  “Jem, let us out!” Gareth yelled as the creature came bounding toward him.

  Airborne and salivating, claws outstretched, the monstrous being flew toward Kaiden’s brother. Gareth flung one hand out to use his psychic powers—a force wave so strong it rocked the couch with Jean-Claude still on it—but the beast only sailed through the attack. Angela shrieked. Moments before it made contact with them, the lights snapped on and the creature vanished.

  Angela stared at the empty space, and Gareth did the same, scratching his head as his gaze scoured the room. “What the hell?” she asked.

  “I don’t even know,” Gareth said.

  As she stood, liquid dripped from Daksha’s uniform. Jean-Claude laughed loudly and pointed like a child.

  “You did this, didn’t you? I swear, you’re such an ass, O’Reilly.”

  Jean-Claude was scandalized. His blue eyes widened in genuine alarm. “What? No! I only laughed because of how ridiculous you look.”

  “Who did it then?” Daksha demanded.

  Kaiden snickered. “Sorry, it was me. You all screamed like wee babies.”

  After a pregnant pause, Jean-Claude said, “That was brilliant!”

  The girls thought otherwise. “Chief or not, you are such an ass,” Daksha wailed. She stormed from the lou
nge. Angela gazed after her uncertainly then returned to her seat on the couch with a shrug.

  “They’ll never let you live it down.” Gareth dropped down in the seat beside his brother and chuckled under his breath. “She and Angela will try to add you to their conquest list now.”

  “They’re welcome to try. The word ‘no’ is part of my vocabulary and I’m able to use it.” Kaiden winked at him and turned a page in the book.

  “How the bloody hell did you pull it off?” Jean-Claude asked him. He leaned forward eagerly, like a child.

  Gareth nodded in agreement. “Seriously. How’d you manage it?”

  Kaiden grinned. “Trade secret.”

  His twin snorted. “Jem helped, didn’t she?”

  “Chief Lockhart!” a crewman called from the lounge’s entrance.

  Gareth and Kaiden both twisted around in their seats, mirror images other than their differing hairstyles and frames. Gareth preferred close cuts, but Kaiden had allowed his hair to reach the limit of military regulation. Anything less failed to hide his scars from the surgery. Kaiden was also broader in the shoulders, thanks to the cybernetic implants built into his skeletal structure. They’d already calculated how many daily grams of additional protein Gareth would have to consume, plus the hours he’d need to spend in the gym to match his brother. His twin had said “fuck that” and decided being one hundred percent identical didn’t matter that much after all.

  “Which Lockhart?” Gareth asked.

  “Uh, Senior Chief Lockhart,” the man clarified, crossing to join them.

  Elizabeth Fairchild, one of their close friends and another tech in the medical bay, followed him into the room. “Told you he’d be here.”

  “What do you want, Humphrey?” Kaiden asked the new recruit. The kid had arrived fresh from training school only a month earlier.

  “A rematch.” Humphrey grinned at him and set a lacquered black box on top of the table. It unfolded into a three-tiered black grid.

  “You sure, kid?” Gareth asked. “He beat you in less than ten minutes last time.”

  “How can I get better if I don’t challenge myself?”

  “He’s got a point,” Kaiden said. “You take white. I’ll be black this time.”

  Unlike Chess and Checkers, players of the game Shogun didn’t capture their opponent’s pieces by moving around the board. They each owned one corner piece on opposing sides. A small figure resembling a Japanese shrine priestess shot a harmless laser, and the point of the game was to deflect the player’s beam to their opponent’s emperor, using a series of pagoda-shaped mirrors and sword-wielding samurai along the way. A piece struck in the back or side had to leave the board.

  “You don’t really buy it that our ancestors used to deflect lasers off their swords in battle, do you?” Kaiden asked.

  “I dunno. Game history says they did,” Gareth muttered.

  “If you believe that, Lockhart, then you really are an idiot,” Elizabeth laughed and pushed Gareth in the shoulder.

  The match drew a small crowd. While deployed, there were only a few places onboard the ship where people could go to unwind and relax in their off-duty hours, and the popular lounge remained a constant source of entertainment for servicemen on board the Jemison.

  “Come on, they were deflecting laser bullets in that one movie we saw,” Gareth argued.

  “With laser swords, and those weren’t samurai—they were Jedi.” Elizabeth shook her head and sighed.

  “And very few of them, if any, had Japanese ancestry,” Kaiden added.

  “All right, all right. Christ. The two of you suck the fun out of everything,” Gareth muttered. “Beat his ass, Humphrey.”

  Humphrey put up a better fight, with gradual improvement over the course of four long games. Kaiden drew it out to view the kid’s strategy, then eventually defeated him a final time and stood up from his seat.

  “Good game, lad. You almost beat me that time.” Indeed, he came quite close because Kaiden allowed it, but he never had a true chance of winning.

  “Hey, Lockhart. You got a moment before you go?” Angela called over.

  Gareth and Kaiden exchanged skeptical glances.

  “Uh… I do. What’s up?” Kaiden asked politely.

  His brother patted him on the shoulder in passing, as if giving his condolences at a funeral. Kaiden scowled at him and lingered beyond the sliding doors until Angela approached.

  “That was some pretty fancy playing there,” she told him, smiling coyly.

  “Aye, it is.” What the hell does she want with me?

  I believe she displays signs of increased female arousal and interest, Jem replied as if his inner thoughts were intended for her.

  I know that much, Captain Obvious, Kaiden grumped internally.

  “You always knew exactly which direction to turn your pieces. You’ll have to show me some of your moves sometime.” Angela twirled her blonde hair around her index finger and cocked out a hip.

  She refers to sexual intercourse, Jem informed him.

  Goddammit, I know that, Kaiden snapped.

  “So, anytime that you want to ask me out for a date during shore leave, or maybe meet up alone on the ship is fine with me,” Angela said.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Kaiden replied. Eager to be away, he hurried down the hallway and onto the first vacant lift to arrive. He caught up to his brother on their deck.

  Gareth laughed at him once they were in the privacy of their room. “I knew she’d scent you out like a fox in heat sooner or later.”

  “Sod off,” Kaiden muttered.

  “Oh, come on. What’s wrong with her anyway? Why not go with it?” An unspoken thought lingered on the tail of Gareth’s words: the brother he once knew would have leapt at the chance. And it was true. Kaiden had been a consummate manwhore of the worst kind, jumping from one woman’s bed to the next without pausing in between. He’d once called the marines a smorgasboard of sexual opportunity.

  “I’m recreating childhood and pretending girls are gross,” Kaiden retorted.

  Gareth shrugged. “Oh, I dunno. She’s rather experienced, or so I hear. Could be a good time.”

  “Aye, but she’s a rank-tagger. And I don’t see you boarding the HMS Angela either.”

  “You know me, I’ve always been a one-woman sort of man. You were the chick magnet.”

  Kaiden stared at him. “You’re dating a virtual avatar claiming to be a woman. For all you know, Flidais is a forty-five-year-old man living in his mum’s basement on Tallulah.”

  Gareth chucked a pillow at him and changed the subject. “Are you going to teach Humphrey any of your tricks? He likes you.”

  “Maybe. Humphrey’s a good kid. Always takes his losses like a man, too. It’s not like playing against Viljoen or Chang,” Kaiden said as he dropped into his desk chair. He didn’t have a rig of his own, not anymore—his mind provided all of the processing power that he needed, along with an active connection to the galactic interweb.

  “Viljoen went right to the gym and pumped iron a solid hour after you whooped the shit out of him,” Gareth said.

  “I must admit, I felt a profound sense of pleasure in taking him down a peg. He’s as much a whining lubbard as I remember, commander or not.”

  “I still can’t believe you passed up on a promotion to officer, big brother. Then you could say stuff to his face.”

  “I didn’t feel like I deserved it,” he said. “Accepting Senior Chief was hard enough. I outrank you now, and I didn’t do anything to earn it.” Lying on a table and losing half his body parts didn’t exactly count as an act of valor.

  Gareth smacked him on the shoulder and grinned. “Yeah, well, I’m up for consideration this year, so we’ll be on equal footing again soon. Catch ya in the morning, I’m going to the biofarm for a jog.”

  “Later,” Kaiden called out. He had plans to enjoy the peace and quiet of the empty room until his evening appointment with Doctor Oshiro. Over a hundred comics awaited him, a
s well as half a dozen novels in his favorite adventure series.

  First he composed a long-distance extramail back home to his mother. While she had been against him returning to the military, she had supported the decision and pleaded with him to send her daily messages if possible. Of course it was possible, when Kaiden could write a letter at the speed of thought. With that finished, he retired to his cot and opened his graphic novel.

  The Jemison may have felt like home again, but he was no closer to discovering the identity behind DNAturals. Maybe he’d never find out.

  With that sobering thought in mind, Kaiden let his mind drift to the words on the pages.

  Three hours after retiring to his bunk, Kaiden stared at the pristine ceiling above his cot while brown noise filtered through the buds tucked into his ears. It didn’t help. Ten years ago, it was the only way Kaiden could sleep on a military vessel, and now it didn’t do anything to ease his agitated state.

  “Kaiden?” Gareth called suddenly.

  His brother’s soft voice barely penetrated the sound-dulling pod surrounding the cot. Sighing, Kaiden opened the door and poked his head out. “Yeah?”

  “I thought you were awake. Flea says she found a new dungeon in Spellbound. Wanna come with us?”

  Kaiden considered playing the third wheel on a magical adventure through his brother’s favorite urban fantasy MMO. Gareth always gamed a couple hours each night with his girlfriend if he could squeeze the time in. “Not this time. Have fun.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah,” he answered, rolling out of his narrow bed. “I’m gonna go for a walk.”

  He didn’t have to see Gareth to know his brother was watching him as he pulled on his boots. During the examination process, Doctor Vargas discovered Kaiden was equipped with a variety of fiber-optic sensors. Once upon a time, he’d been one of United Command’s best field agents, and thanks to Saskia’s treachery, DNAturals made it all the more true. Sneaking up on Kaiden had become impossible, making him an ideal candidate for solo missions on the Jemison.

  “Would you bring me some coffee?”

  Kaiden sighed at him. “Why don’t you sleep at night for once? Flidais isn’t going anywhere.”