“Can’t you, I don’t know, behead him with a sword?” Was Curtis invincible?
“Kill him? That’s not my job. I’m a marshal, not an executioner. Where’s the justice? His victims won’t see him held accountable. I’d rather know he is rotting in the prison hulk, Demon Hell, than suffer a swift execution. Death would be too kind given the prison’s reputation. Anyway, I doubt I’d get near to him with a sword or axe, he’s got eyes in the back of his head. Literally—extra eyes.” He grimaced, mirroring her own repulsion.
What hadn’t repulsed her was Mason’s devotion to justice. He wasn’t a sponsored vigilante like the bounty hunters he despised. They operated on a dead or alive contract. Her bedfellow, the man she’d come to admire and love, was steeped in moral conviction. She’d been short-sighted when she’d believed all federal officers were villains.
Jade lay next to him, recollecting anything she could think of about cyborgs. “He must have batteries, but those would be behind the armor… mmm.”
“Thinking?” he chortled. “Me, too.”
“So, that leaves the cybernetics. How does he control those limbs?”
Mason shrugged. “Not my line of work.”
It was hers though; it was exactly what she’d studied. “I guess he has an implant and uses psycho-neuro transmits.”
“What? You’ve just made that word up.”
Jade slapped the heel of her palm on her forehead. “That’s it. That’s how you can catch him.”
Mason eased himself up onto an elbow. “How?”
“The implant in his brain. Given what you say about his speed, I would say that the nerves aren’t fully connected to his brain, that the signals are send via transmitters from his brain to—”
“Slow up. Explain.” Mason’s demeanor had shifted. He wasn’t interested in a lecture, he wanted a solution.
“Okay. Simply put. He thinks what he wants to do, the message doesn’t go through his spine and nerves, it’s transmitted directly to his muscles using the implant device in his head. Break the transmission and he can’t move. He’s not wired up like us. It takes years to regrow nerves—”
“I get it.” Mason pursed his lips. “How to break the transmitter?”
“Interference. Block it. Find the wavelength and zap it.” She’d made it sound simple, but it wasn’t. The big problem was identifying the wavelength.
“Is it feasible?” Mason mused. “How close would the device need to be?”
“I guess a few strides. The same room. The transmitter in the implant would be localized to him.”
“What do you need?”
Jade was delighted—he wanted her help. She had a purpose beyond fixing dilapidated systems and the problem needed her innovated set of skills. She examined the wrist bands. Mason had agreed if she made it to the space station without any further punishments he would remove them.
“The remote you use to activate these.” She waved her arm. “I’ll use that. It transmits a similar signal and I could alter it to scan for others, then transmit an alternative signal, something to confuse his implant.”
He reached over her to the bedside table and retrieved the remote from a drawer. He smiled. “I guess you’ll have to come out of those bands.”
She fluttered her eyelids. “I have been good, sir. And it’s just two days to the station.”
He chuckled and tapped the button with a special rhythm. The bands slipped off her wrists. Part of her missed them, because although they represented her status as his captive, they also implied a different kind of bond between them—that she was under his protection. Mason handed her the remote. “Look after it.”
“I’ll have to take it apart,” she said.
His eyebrows furrowed. “It doesn’t scan for signals—it sends them.”
Stealth! The solution lay in her little craft. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but there is a nano-scanner on Stealth. We use it to monitor military channels—for the purposes of completing the mission, of course.”
Mason grunted, obviously displeased with her admission, but he couldn’t ignore the opportunity. “You could incorporate the two devices into one?”
“Probably, can’t promise. I’ll have a go.”
His face transformed from displeasure to delight. It pleased her to see him happier. He also had undergone another transformation. Sweeping back the covers, he revealed a growing erection.