Mine to Keep

CyberServed

MINE TO KEEP

Tracy St. John

© copyright April 2022, Tracy St. John

Cover art by Erin Dameron-Hill, © copyright February 2022

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s

imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or

events is merely coincidence.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter One

Lillian Kwolek failed to notice the protestors until she set her shuttle down in the landing bay. Then they came from seemingly everywhere and swarmed around her vessel.

Great. Just fucking great. CyberServe’s security had majorly screwed up. Demonstrators shouldn’t have been able to access the shuttle bay. The company’s lobby had been designated the official area for dissenters to gather, with visitors being routed through other entrances. The arrangement kept the Interplanetary Trade and Commerce System, commonly referred to as the ITCS, content. It kept Lillian Kwolek, president of CyberServe, very happy.

She spotted familiar features within the swarm of sign-waving protestors and groaned. Gunnar Jax was the leader of the Freedom League, an Earth-based movement. His scraggly beard, along with wild, unkempt hair and crooked-tooth smile, somehow failed to detract from fine-boned good looks. Not that Lillian would ever consider him attractive. Gunnar looked as he usually did; as if he’d just rolled out of a garbage reclamation unit wearing a bigger man’s clothes.

For all his disreputable appearance, he was no one to screw with. Bad things had a tendency to happen when he and his people showed up. If Gunnar was there…

Of course. Artemis Neera was present as well. Her bushy brown hair was as wild as Gunnar’s. Thick brows grew low over her burning eyes. Gunnar’s girlfriend was a supposed founder of the Freedom League. She eschewed the spotlight, but she was always in the thick of the action. She was rumored to be among the most violent of the faction. Like Gunnar, the police had yet to make any charges of illegal activities stick to her.

Lillian reached for her phone to call security. No need. They burst into the bay, a dozen men and women shouting at the demonstrators as they waved shock batons.

Gunnar yelled in return. Inside her soundproof Strobe XL-Six, Lillian couldn’t hear his or any other shouts. Most of the crowd turned and rushed the guards.

Shit, shit, shit, Lillian groaned as she watched through the shuttle’s front monitor. If any of CyberServe’s employees lost his or her temper, if someone got hurt…

She put her hands to her face. Her fingers spread to allow her to peer between them as the two groups shoved each other. The situation looked as if it would go to hell in a hurry.

Should she go out there? As president of the company, she had to do something. Several demonstrators, including Neera, had remained behind to watch her craft. They obviously waited for her to put in an appearance. While Lillian had no trouble putting her fist in someone’s mug, Freedom League members were renowned for fighting dirty.

Hell, Freedom League members had killed those they’d disagreed with.

The pushing and shouting grew more violent. The shock batons pointed. That only appeared to enrage to demonstrators, and they shoved harder than ever. The shit was about to hit the fan.

The double doors security had entered through opened. At least two dozen Walls and Wardens came out, and the angry tide swirled back as expressions went from rage-filled to terrified.

Yeah, that’s going to get them on our side, Lillian muttered, but she was glad to see the cyborgs marching in three columns.

The Walls…more accurately, the TWMs and TWFs…looked like their nicknames. Male and female cyborgs that bulged muscle, their brutish visages cold with intent, they’d been the big guns of the corporate wars on Earth. They’d terrorized rival corporations’ cyborgs and the humans caught in the middle.

The PSMs were smaller and outfitted with less coarse features. One could call the all-male Warden models handsome with their refined physical characteristics. Nonetheless, anyone who’d spent prison time under their merciless care wouldn’t acknowledge them as humane creatures. The Wardens had taken torture to horrific levels.

Many, if not all, of the Freedom League had been on Earth during the wars. They’d watched the cyborgs tear the world apart. They’d witnessed them visit atrocities on loved ones. They’d seen the cyborgs kill. Some had been personally hurt by the manufactured soldiers. A few may have been part of the desperate alliance that had finally overcome the corporations and their cyborgs. By then, Earth had damned few resources remaining, thanks to the corporate executives’ greed that had turned into a free-for-all grab for riches and power.

Cyborg armies had been the terrors of Earth’s corporate wars. Rather than disassemble them, cash-desperate Earth had sold the defunct salvaged remainder afterward to CyberServe. The company Lillian presided over refurbished, reprogrammed, and sold the cyborgs as devoted servants to the humans who lived off-world.

Hence the Freedom League’s displeasure with Lillian’s company. They’d left Earth to make their ire known in person by showing up in large crowds at CyberServe.

Lillian was delighted they were in full retreat at the moment. With the cyborg arrivals, shuttles in the visitors’ slots were lifting off and flying haphazardly in their mad dash to escape. It was a wonder they avoided smashing into employees’ vessels, walls, or the ceiling of the cavernous space.

By the time she stepped out of her Strobe and emerged in the midst of the cyborg phalanx, the Freedom League was gone. Torn signs, placards of hate printed in blood red, lay scattered on the bay floor.

Good job, gang. She looked at her protectors with mingled pride and relief.

Thank you, Mr. Kwolek, they chorused.

The very human Security Chief Scott Michaels trotted up. I’m sorry you walked into that, Mr. Kwolek. They arrived barely a minute before you did, and I was calling in the team to turn them out when you landed. No excuse for the delay, I understand, and my resignation will be on your desk within the hour. His voice caught halfway through his speech, but the red-faced man powered through it.

Lillian took in his trim physique in his gray CyberServe security uniform. How much of his tone came from actual workouts and how much from contouring? No matter. Whether his body was real or surgically enhanced, Michaels’ other qualifications were topnotch, the best she’d been able to hire when it became apparent CyberServe would have safety concerns against outside agitators.

You most certainly won’t resign, Mr. Michaels. What you’ll do is figure out how those people got past the defensive grid to gain access to what should have been a fortified area. You’ll fix it immediately. She eyed him severely.

The tension vacated his features, which had been allowed to show some of his middle-aged years. At least Michaels wasn’t erasing the lines in his forehead or around his eyes, the way so many did. A grateful smile didn’t break through, but it teased the corners of his mouth.

Absolutely, Mr. Kwolek. Thank you. Until we figure out how those protestors got through, there’ll be a full security complement guarding the bay.

Excellent. I recognized members of the Freedom League, so you’ll want to call in the regular police.

Michaels paled. Right away. He hurried to the detail he’d brought in and barked orders.

A TWF stepped forward. Her heavy brow made her look as if she were scowling to the untrained eye. It was actually her most deadpan expression. A detail of four was instructed to escort you to your office, Mr. Kwolek.

Thank you, TWF.

The cyborg snapped a nod. She jerked a motion with a beefy arm. Wrapped around a human head, that arm would crush the skull like an eggshell. Detail, assemble. All others, return to your berths and power down until needed again.

Three other cyborgs joined her in surrounding Lillian. The rest marched out ahead of them. Their boots echoed in the bay in thunderous booms.

The cyborgs were impressive. Fearsome. But thanks to Lillian, no longer deadly.

* * * *

Alek knew the soft tread of Lillian’s step, and he turned to greet her as she entered her office. She left the guard detail outside her door, which closed behind her.

Assessment: Lillian Kwolek appears tense and ill-humored. Experience dictates this unit display a low-level concern approach.

After a year of functioning and learning, Alek’s matrix wasn’t required to tell him how to cope with Lillian. Nevertheless, it was good to have a scientific appraisal of her state of mind. Good morning, Mr. Kwolek. I trust the ambush in the shuttle bay didn’t inconvenience you too greatly?

It would have been far worse if you hadn’t sent in the cyborgs. Good call. Thank you, Alek.

I’m pleased to have been of service. He gave a stock answer humans expected to hear. Alek was pleased about nothing. He was also never irritated, peeved, or upset. He simply was.

He watched as Lillian slung her carrycase on the top of her polished desk. Her spiky silver hair, its ends tipped in black and red, was its usual artfully messy state. Her tie matched its coloring in alternating stripes, as did her long fingernails, which tapped nervously on her desk.

Lillian was unlike her contemporaries in many ways. Alek found her defiant non-corporate style interesting, but not enough to ask her about it. Despite the hair, which could change color daily, weekly, or monthly depending on her whims, she tended toward more of a natural look. She might go in for body contouring every month or two, depending on whether she had put on a few extra pounds, but she wasn’t rabid about it. Indeed, she was a far cry from the current trend of looking like a svelte gym maven. Her shape was a top-heavy hourglass. Alek had noted the gazes of most men and quite a few women went to her ample bosom, like moths attracted to a flame. Her breasts were impressive, he supposed.

He should know. He’d seen them close up and naked. He’d mauled and sucked them numerous times. He’d even fucked her cleavage, those impressive mounds pressed together to enfold his erect cock.

She eschewed most makeup, because she preferred her rose-beige skin bare. Mascara, lip gloss, and the occasional swipe of blush when she had to make a public appearance were her sole concessions. She was a dichotomy inside and out, the most interesting human in Alek’s existence.

Which wasn’t saying much. Fortunately, Alek wasn’t programmed to get bored. He simply existed.

Lillian sank into her chair. She drew a deep breath, perhaps to steady the tremor in her voice. I need to report to Tosha Cameron. More importantly, I need to get her guidance on what steps to take.

Mr. Michaels’ expertise isn’t adequate? Alek’s tone was modulated to imply interest.

It may be, but as Life Tech’s CEO, Mr. Cameron has been the target of attacks and assassination attempts. Her cyborg bodyguard knows more about personal security than a hundred Scott Michaels. I want their insight.

Her remark lit a few of Alek’s circuits with what humans would have termed fascination. Brick, the TWM owned by Tosha Cameron, was a fully sentient cyborg with emotions. Little impressed Alek, but he found Brick’s development from a basic automaton to a fully realized entity absorbing.

May I observe your conversation?

Lillian waved him over. Since company protocols keep me from recording it, you’d better. She always has a laundry list of advice, and I’ll never remember it all.

Alek hurried over as she sent the request for a video conference with the owner and CEO of the company that owned CyberServe.

As Lillian waited to be patched through…Tosha Cameron’s aide Amadis Dubois had said the CEO wanted to speak to Lillian as soon as she finished with the call she was on…she regarded her own assistant. She needed a distraction, and Alek was a better diversion than anything else in the room.

PSM-426021, better known as Alek for the last year, was a handsome version of his model, the Warden. Lillian had experimented with his looks for six months until arriving at his current appearance. The PSMs were masculine without the heavy brows and jaws that made the TWMs so brutish. They were handsome, with none of the sleek delicacy of the Infiltrator-class cyborgs. Thanks to Lillian’s upgrades, Alek approached fashion model perfection.

She’d kept the military cut of his hair because it suited him so well, but she’d changed it from a nondescript brunette to a sandy blond. She’d liked his tawny eyes, so she’d kept those. His features had been altered slightly. Lillian had directed its change from the kindly angelic cast that had been such a lie for the PSMs to reflect a firmer, no-nonsense attitude. Alek still look as if he could be an angel, but more along the lines of the avenging type.

When Lillian had discovered him among the other decommissioned cyborgs stored in a warehouse, his skin had been torn in several places, his metal skeletal limbs bent. His left arm had been completely torn off. Still, he’d been in better shape than most, and it hadn’t taken long to repair him and replace the matrix that served as his brain. He wasn’t the muscled behemoth that characterized the physiques of the TWMs and TWFs, but he was the sort of buff that would cost a human thousands of dollars to achieve and hundreds a year to maintain in a contouring studio.

It was what was between Alek’s legs that gave him what counted in Lillian’s view. The PSMs had been originally outfitted to terrorize prisoners, male and female alike, in ways she refused to imagine. Now programmed to offer pleasure instead of torture, Alek could be properly appreciated for his substantial gift.

Lillian hadn’t taken him home in a couple of weeks, and she had a new upgrade to test. One of the perks of being a senior engineer for CyberTech had been bringing her ‘work’ home. As president, Lillian was granted even more leeway.

New upgrade or no, she deserved a satisfying fuck after the bullshit she’d encountered in the shuttle bay. The kind of demanding fuck where she couldn’t think of anything except what was going on at the moment.

Her ruminations halted as Tosha Cameron’s lovely face filled her viewscreen. Mr. Kwolek, it’s good to see you. What’s this report about you being threatened?

Lillian loved that about her boss: straight to the point. The lady didn’t screw around.

She matched Cameron’s lack of equivocation with her own. In less than a minute, Lillian laid out the facts of what had occurred in the shuttle bay and ended with a request for advice.

After all, you know a thing or two about fending off personal attacks. She forced her tone into lightness.

Cameron chuckled. I do. I’m glad the situation escalated no further than it did and you’re safe and sound. Brick, you’re the expert on these matters. What’s your take?

The holoscreen monitor widened to