Read Marcus 582: Book Three of Cyborgs: Mankind Redefined for Free Online

Now? Oh…okay. I’ve enjoyed our coffee date,” Nathan said, standing too.
     
    “Date…right,” Rachel repeated without any inflection. But the one word description of their time together was now a joke to her. She’d wasted an hour of her life with a man who would never accept her. Hardly her idea of a good relationship beginning.
     
    “Can I walk you home?” Nathan asked.
     
    Rachel shook her head. For the first time, she missed the nearly silent man who always appeared to walk with her. Not that Marcus with all his problems was great company either, but at least she didn’t have to hide what had happened to her from him. She’d never be able to tell someone like Nathan the truth.
     
    “No…thanks,” Rachel said carefully. “I…am…good. See…you…a…round, Na…than.”
     
    “You mean like at work. Sure. I’ll look for you in the hallways. Can we do dinner sometime? Take in a vid? I’m free all next week.”
     
    Rachel shrugged. “May…be,” she said vaguely, because saying no would have told him more than she wanted him to know about her unsettled feelings. Vague was better. Vague wouldn’t be questioned as much if she needed to sidestep him later.
     
    She tucked her head down as she moved through the crowd and out the door.
     
    So much for her first foray back into the real world. Chalk up one experiment as an abject failure.
     
    She kept her gaze down and focused mostly on the walkway as she passed others who were out and about that evening.
     
    Relieved after her feet had burned up the four blocks she and Nathan had travelled from work to the coffee shop, she breathed a sigh of relief as she headed into her building. With her mind still on her disturbing conversation, she walked blindly past the desk and the bot manning it. The scanner violation alarm sounded before she realized what she’d done.
     
    “Oh…no.”
     
    “Stop…Rachel 235…you are in…violation…of resident entry…procedures. Please exit the…scanner and step…to the side…to be processed. Do not…proceed…to your…destination.”
     
    She might have outrun him, but the AI guard would eventually scan his protocols for a counter response. Even as slow as he processed data, he would no doubt lock down her actual residence before the airlift could deliver her to her floor.
     
    Rachel’s guilty gaze swung completely to the bot who was now rising to come apprehend her. Hearing him struggling to speak after the day she’d had struggling to do the same was definitely a reality check. This must be how she sounded to the world. The AI unit’s same stupid voice box break down was happening to her, even though she was mostly human. Like it or not, she was now officially no better off than a broken AI unit who couldn’t talk properly.
     
    “Bunch…of…shit,” she stammered in denial.
     
    Tomorrow morning she was going to let Seetha try again to fix her. And she would do it seventeen thousand other times if that’s what it took to speak semi-normally. Keeping up a resistant attitude wasn’t going to help her deal with this situation. Look what feeling sorry for herself had already caused?
     
    Because of her current emotional meltdown, she had created more problems. Bypassing the building’s security scanner meant an automatic body search—one she couldn’t talk her way out of. She sniffled and fought not to feel more sorry for herself. The last thing she needed this evening was a metal pat down from an unfeeling android.
     
    “It…was…an…ac…ci…dent.”
     
    Rachel closed her eyes to shut out what was going to happen. A single self-pitying tear trickled from one of them and ran down her cheek. With her voice like it was, she couldn’t yell, scream, or express the level of frustration she felt. All her emotions were bottled up inside her with no adequate way to get out of her mouth or throat.
     
    She felt powerless to prevent the shittiest day she’d had since her rescue from Bradley