Fix the Game (Mechanical Advantage Book 4)

  Forced to be a medic at a corrupt arena, Cracker dreams of getting one person on her side, and then, he shows up.

  Cracker’s life after the explosion was textbook. She only had one broken leg from the blast, but she was sent to the arena at the request of some retired generals, and there, she was altered into a lost leg with a tether running through it.

  She was delighted when communication with everyone as possible, and even if she had to hide her equipment, she had friends to talk to again. She hid her situation as best she could, but the day that she met the first-gen cyborg, she thought that things might just be turning around.

  With a tiny drop of hope in her life, she asked Lucky for programs that would help her out of her situation, and her friend delivered.

  Cracker was now back in action.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Fix the Game

  Copyright © 2019 by Viola Grace

  ISBN: 978-1-987969-67-2

  ©Cover art by Carmen Waters

  All rights reserved. With the exception of review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the express permission of the publisher.

  Published by Viola Grace

  Look for me online at violagrace.com, Sea to Sky Books, Amazon, Smashwords, Kobo, B&N, and other eBook sellers.

  Fix the Game

  Mechanical Advantage Book 4

  By

  Viola Grace

  Chapter One

  Stitch and Alphy double and triple checked the files. Stitch murmured, “Are these the best that we have?”

  “They are the best of the first-gen. They are powerful, they will blend in with the other cyborgs, and no one will think anything of them being out solo. They are old enough that their teams would be dead by now.”

  Stitch sighed. “Do they all have espionage programming?”

  “Yes. All natural hackers as well. They can get through most existing systems.”

  Stitch laughed. “Like yours?”

  “Not a chance. They aren’t even up to check the catering on this vessel. So, do we wake them up?” Alphy raised her brows.

  “Yeah. We are going to wake them up. The ladies won’t tell us where they are, so we have to send these guys out to hunt for them. I just hope that our missing companions will accept these guys at face value.”

  Alphy coughed. “I did pick them for their appearance as a secondary characteristic. Power was first. Survival instinct is third.”

  Stitch chuckled. “You didn’t choose for charisma?”

  Alphy snorted. “No. The ladies don’t have much in the way of personality, so the guys should be fine.”

  They stood and laughed together as they started the wake-up protocols. These guys were going to get their asses kicked if they tried to bring the ladies home without their full consent. It was both terrifying and hilarious.

  * * * *

  Six weeks later.

  Kerida Mills stopped her cheerful chat with Alphy, and she hid her com equipment. Twenty seconds after she was back on her inventory list, her door flew open.

  “Cracker. You are needed.”

  She nodded and looked at the chain on her ankle. “Unlock me and let’s go.”

  He nodded and swiped the access card that unlocked her tether.

  Cracker was blessed to have found herself with human cyborgs, but she really wished that the location hadn’t included a cyborg fight club for the generals.

  She was also not too fond of the shackle that pierced her artificial leg.

  He took the cable and held it as she walked with him toward the noisy hall of the arena.

  She couldn’t tell him that she wasn’t going to run. Her three escape attempts in the last year had managed to make them very wary. She hobbled along with her handler. If she had been able to use her equipment to shape a leg that fit, she might have been a little more mobile. She was locked out on using the equipment for her own enhancements.

  Being able to take apart her com was part and parcel of her ability to hide that she was talking to the others. She wanted to tell Stitch, Alphy, and Lucky where she was and what was going on, but they were under regular attack by the Splice, and she didn’t want to stress them out.

  It was embarrassing to be held captive by your own forces, but she had been accused of attempting to go AWOL, even though she just wanted to return to her actual unit. After four years, there were only six survivors from Adaptation Station. Everyone else was gone. Dead or dispersed.

  The five other survivors of the explosion on the base were the closest thing to family that she had. She would never put them in danger. Her goal was to keep herself alive and hidden from Stitch and Alphy as long as she possibly could. If they came after her, they would be facing an entire station full of angry fighters, and she had spent the last four years making those men the deadliest on their world. It hadn’t bought her loyalty, only a demand for more mods and more mods. She had crafted monsters.

  “Who am I seeing at the clinic?” It was a polite name for the reprogramming and repair center.

  “A new winner. He just arrived. All indications are that he was one of the first-gen cyborgs. He certainly does know how to figure his way around a battlefield.”

  “Wait, I am being asked to treat a new arrival?”

  “They want a spec level on him. He has a lot of potential.”

  Cracker rolled her eyes. “Right. Just make sure I have enough run on the tether. Last time it tripped me up.”

  “I will try. Tell me where you need to be, and I will link you to that station.”

  “I won’t know until I can run a diagnostic.”

  “Of course. How is the pace?”

  She continued on with the rolling walk that she had to engage in for the height difference in her left and right legs. Her left leg was two inches longer than her right. She was short, and there were no cyborgs on this world as short as she was. She also wasn’t allowed to fix herself. It was frustrating as hell. They wouldn’t even let her put a two-inch block on her right boot. Assholes.

  The walk to the clinic took five minutes from her quarters, and she had to do it under guard every time she was called. The most she had ever been summoned was ten times in the same day, and for the last three trips, she had made her escort carry her.

  This was her first trip today.

  The guards nodded to her, and one held the door open for her and her escort. She thumped into the clinic and headed for her desk, putting on her lab coat. It kept the blood from splattering on her outfit.

  “Where is my patient?”

  The escort looked at her. “Where would you like to be hooked up?”

  “I don’t know. I need to see what I am dealing with. Stay put.”

  He grumbled but nodded. He spoke into his com. “Send him in.”

  Two men helped the limping and damaged patient. A quick glance showed her a broken humorous and femur. “By the machine shop.”

  They helped him there, and she walked with her escort, listening to the clank of her tether locking into place while she examined her patient.

  “No offense, Doc. If you can’t fix yourself, I don’t know if I want you fixing me.”

  She snorted and reached for her med kit and the nanite boosters. “Funny. This is a strategic malformation on their part. They won’t let me fix it.”

  She jabbed him automatically, watching the limb straighten as the nanites pulled it into place.

  Cracker took he
r surgical set, got some reinforcing implants, and sent an anaesthetic into the tissue a moment before the laser cut the hole that she used to slide the implants alongside the bone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Reinforcing the femur. I am attaching plates around the break that will eventually be eroded by your nanites. Is your left side the only damage?”

  “It is. My right is close to full implant.”

  She nodded. “So, you have a localized nanite generator.”

  He sounded amused. “I do.”

  “Do you mind if I put in a full-system generator? It can be used to wrap the damaged bone, and you will heal in two days.”

  He chuckled. “Sure. You do seem to know what you are doing.”

  She finished fastening the third plate. “Oddly enough, I do.”

  “What is your name?”

  She was surprised. She looked up, and he was leaning back on his adapted arm, smiling at her. His face was slightly bruised, but his lips were quirked with a strange expression.

  He paused, and then, he inclined his head. “They have been calling me Hammer.”

  “Cracker.”

  “What?”

  “My nickname is Cracker.” She smiled and went to get the tiny nanite generator that she would implant along his spine.

  She set the machine shop to make another one and used the waldos to withdraw the ready machine to set it on the receiving tray.

  She slid the tray out of the unit and carried it over to her surgical equipment. “Okay, flip to your stomach and stretch out.”

  He carefully rolled to his abdomen, and he asked, “Where do you want my arms?”

  “Next to your head, please.”

  She lined up the equipment over his spine. “Are you familiar with the procedure?”

  “You put in the nanite generator, and it will turn some of my tissue and cells into nanites, which will then work on all tears in bone and tissue.”

  “Correct. You will have to eat extra rations until the generator catches up with the damage.”

  “Understood.”

  She used the anaesthetic again, and then, she went in with the laser, cut a rib, and used her controls to have the rib shifted out of place while she used the insertion tools to pick up and deliver the nanite generator into the space under his rib and next to his spine. She moved the bone over, attached some light supports, and reached through the tissue between ribs to activate the generator before she retracted the tools and sealed his skin.

  She moved her tools aside and set the monitor over the generator as it got to work.

  “Is it in?”

  She chuckled. “That is my line.”

  He paused and then snorted. “I think you might notice.”

  Cracker grinned. “Sorry. Force of habit. Yes, the generator is in, it is working on the incisions I have made, and you should be up to fighting form in two days. How did you get broken up anyway?”

  She waited and watched the nanites.

  “The Melee. It was my first fight, and there were no other noobs.”

  She paused. “And you got out of it with two fractures? Wow. Impressive.”

  “Thank you. Why is there a cable attached to your leg?”

  She chuckled and moved the monitor away. “I am a runner. This is not the place that I want to be.”

  “How can you run with mismatched limbs?”

  Cracker laughed. “I have my ways.”

  She backed away. “You can sit up now.”

  He sat up, and she began to realize how large he actually was.

  “Don’t you want to do a complete scan?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “That would allow the arena to handicap you. Personally, I want there to be a little bit of a surprise in the fights.”

  She balanced on her left leg for the extra two inches in height.

  “How were you injured?”

  She made a face. “It was a simple break that could have been healed with a generator and a cast, but the idiot butcher got rid of my actual leg before he bothered to check the inventory for bones that would fit.”

  He hissed in sympathy.

  Cracker chuckled. “Well, that is enough for me. Hammer, you are done now, so just take it easy for the day and tomorrow as well. Then, you can get back to doing whatever it is that you want to do.”

  “Can I come back here if I need something?”

  She nodded. “Sure. They won’t let you in until you have enough credits, which is another reason I skipped the full scan. Those things get expensive.”

  “Do you get the profit?”

  She laughed. She was still laughing when she used the buzzer to summon her handler, and he untethered her to lead her away.

  Hammer was still staring at her as she left the clinic. She could feel it.

  They had gone twenty paces when she heard the click of her handler’s com. He slowly turned her around, and they moved back to her workspace. “Now, you have to deal with all the men he injured.”

  “Damn. How many were there?”

  “Twelve. It was a very thoroughly viewed fight.”

  “Aw, shit. Well, I had better fire up all stations. Bring in the worst damaged three, and I will line them up. You are going to have to stay with me. I am going to be moving a lot.”

  He shuddered. “I don’t want to be in there.”

  “Then, find someone who can stand the sight of blood. I need free range of movement today.”

  He swallowed. “Right. I will see who I can find.”

  “Give the orders to the doormen to keep me locked in, and that will last until you get back.”

  He nodded and quickly headed to the door, forgetting that he was attached to her. She squawked and hit the floor. He cursed and hauled her to her feet. She limped more than usual as she headed back to the clinic. She could feel the bruises forming, and her nanites were kept at exceedingly low levels. She wasn’t going to heal any time soon.

  Chapter Two

  “Done. I am done. I can’t work anymore.” She finished with her patient, and she staggered to sit down.

  Her guard asked, “What is it?”

  She pulled back the sleeve of the lab coat then shrugged and peeled it off, displaying the bruising that had the unmistakable pattern of the gridded floor.

  “I can’t lift my arm, and the administration won’t let me heal myself properly. What do you think the result would be if I lost my grip on the laser? I am done until this muscle injury heals.”

  Six patients and a lot of internal bleeding later, and she was finished. Her hemophilia hadn’t been a problem while she had a normally functioning nanite manufacturing center, but when the previous medic had turned her unit down, her health had begun to degrade rapidly. Now, she was only fine if she could stay upright, and having someone yank on her leg meant that she hit the deck more than she liked.

  The escort blinked. “You have to finish.”

  “I can’t. I am injured. You injured me.” She sighed. “I have a bleeding disorder. It is in my care file.”

  “You are not bleeding.”

  “Internal bleeding, twit. Call the administrators and chill the last six fighters. I can’t do anything with them today. Hell, I can’t even walk back to my quarters.”

  The guard blinked.

  “Just call the door guards. I will let them know. At least one of them has seen this before.”

  The guard carefully went to the door and spoke with the guard there. The door opened, and she exposed the vivid crimson and black markings on her arm and running down her ribs. He nodded and spoke quickly to the escort.

  “I will take her back to her quarters and file a report. Get the remaining fighters into stasis, and she will get to them when she is healed.”

  He didn’t hesitate. He lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the clinic and back to her quarters with the tether writhing behind her.

  She didn’t close her eyes, but she winced when he clipped the tether onto the link in her chamber.<
br />
  “Do you need anything?”

  “Just some time to heal. He really pulled hard, and I was dropped and scraped. I will be back to duty in forty-eight hours.”

  “Good. Rest. We would hate to lose our best medic over something so stupid.”

  “If they would let me carry a normal nanite load, I would be healed already. Please, feel free to pass on my bitching about that little thing that is putting my life in danger.”

  His lips tensed and he nodded. “I will. Rest and heal.”

  She nodded, and as soon as he left her, she set up her perimeter sensors to alert her to when someone was within twenty feet of her door, and she waited until he was gone.

  She brought out the com equipment, linked to the entertainment broadcast, and sent her signal out to the stars. She was looking for one particular person, and that person could help her with her issue.

  She dozed while she waited, and when the ping of a response hit her, she snapped awake. “Lucky?”

  “Cracker, is that you?”

  “Who else? I have to make this quick. I need some code.”

  There was a pause. “Anything you need.”

  “I need to use code to activate a nanite production module that has been set to minimal production. I also need code to reduce the tibia and fibula of a metal implant.”

  “I can get those for you in an hour.”

  “I will call back. Keep this quiet. I don’t want to scare anyone.”

  “Are you safe?”

  “Fairly. I am not in danger of Splice attack.”

  “Good. Why can’t I tell the others?”

  Cracker could tell by the faint voice that Lucky was already working.

  “I don’t want anyone to come looking for me. I am not in a bad place, just not where I would have chosen to be.”

  “Call me back in an hour.”

  They disconnected communications, and Cracker put her equipment away. She separated it into small components that didn’t look like the part of the whole. She could put it together in a minute, but it was dangerous every time she did it.