Turncoat by Megan Derr (the false prince series txt) 📕

added Countdown to our numbers, they're gonna be gunning for the whole lot of us more than ever."

"Mm," Byron agreed. "I'm working on that, too. Anything you need to do, or shall we go ahead and get you running?"

Dixie snorted. "What would I have to do? I'm grounded, ain't nothing on my hands but time."

"How much do you want Greg and his friend to know? You'll probably still be wired up when they get back."

"They're gonna have to know eventually," Dixie said. "Don't rush to show them, but if it comes up, well, it is what it is. He saw a hint of my tricks last night. No secret lasts forever. Let me get a shower and I'll meet you upstairs."

Forty-ish minutes later, wearing only a pair of yoga pants because hell if they weren't the most comfortable thing in existence, he climbed the stairs all the way to the top of the apartment building. The very top floor had been split into three parts. One half was a makeshift hospital, and Byron had filled it with a lot of bells and whistles.

The other half was divided between storage and a room that looked like something out of a sci-fi novel. Or a G.O.D. laboratory. There was a bank of monitors to the left, arrayed all along the wall. Beneath them was a smooth black table that looked like glass until Byron rolled over on his stool and it shimmered to life to display a large, intricate keyboard and additional buttons, boxes, and rapidly moving lists. "Have a seat, beautiful."

Dixie sat down in the long, leather-covered, medical looking seat that had been designed specifically for him. Several months after Byron had taken him and Matt in, Byron had coaxed info out of him, and over the course of several more months, had built the room. The chair had actually been the easy part, in the end, since damn near everything else had needed to be stolen straight from G.O.D. headquarters throughout the country.

He settled in, tried not to twitch when the padded bands came up to hold his arms and legs in place for when he invariably fell asleep. The headrest had a special gap at the neck, and after a few more minutes' work at his monitors, Byron rolled over and with deft, gentle touches, removed the artificial skin that covered Dixie's access and control points—a series of tiny slots to connect wires and insert the Mason Chip, and the points where only Dixie's touch could wake or shut down his systems. "Ready?"

"Yeah," Dixie said and grunted as Byron attached two wires. Behind him, the monitors flared to life as they began to pull and list his data. Byron wheeled around to his other side and set to work on the rest: one drip of special fluids and medicines, another that would replenish and restore the special nanowiring attached to Dixie's system, and a shot with a special numbing agent that would keep Dixie from screaming his fool head off at the pain that'd tear him apart otherwise.

Because humans weren't meant to be part machine, not the way he was, anyway, but nobody at the G.O.D. gave much of a damn.

He turned his head ever so slightly to read the monitors, taking in where all was well and where the nanowiring was going to need repairing. The damned stuff ran through his body, using him as battery-processor-autorepair. What his body couldn't fix, periodic maintenance took care of, though it could take anywhere from eight to twenty-four hours to do it.

Byron quickly finished the rest of his work, ensuring Dixie wouldn't need to move for any reason for a whole lot of hours. Rolling back to the monitors, he punched several keys to the get the process going. "Best guess right now, I don't think this will take you more than the usual twelve-ish. Want anything?"

"Just an audiobook," Dixie said. "What have you got?"

"Couple of new fantasies, you'd like them both. I've also got some new thrillers and a history book."

"Give me one of the fantasies."

Byron nodded and pressed a few more buttons. "Call if you need me."

Dixie grunted out a reply and closed his eyes as the audiobook began to play, let himself fall into a trance while his body worked on repairing and cleaning all his computer bits.

He was pulled out of it a few hours later by a sudden weight draped across his lap. Hands splayed across his chest, and Dixie dragged his eyes open to see Greg watching him like, well, a fucking cat. "Can I help you?"

"I totally thought Byron was fucking with me," Greg said, eyes roving over Dixie, wide with fascination. "Although I gotta admit the stupid pants you're wearing are almost more distracting than the fact you've got stuff plugged into you."

Dixie narrowed his eyes. "You're something else again, kitten."

"Call me that one more time," Greg replied, nails digging into Dixie's chest as his eyes snapped to Dixie's, "and I'll hook you up to something that will fry you from the inside out."

Dixie grinned. "Stop clawing me. And my system is pretty well wired against that."

"Maybe your sci-fi bits, but I know firsthand that most of you is human standard." Greg waggled his eyebrows.

"The nanomachines play private security," Dixie said, bucking enough in his seat to jostle Greg without messing up everything plugged or stuck into him. "What in the hell are you doing up here, anyway? Did you give Byron the slip?"

Greg shrugged. "He wandered off muttering to himself the way he does when he's in plotting space. He said to leave you alone, but I had to come see for myself because, like I said, I thought he was fucking with me and you'd just be up here working on some fancy computers. I really didn't believe that you are the fancy computer." He leaned forward again, shifting slightly to straddle Dixie's lap more comfortably, hands once more resting on Dixie's chest. Like a damned cat making himself nice and