Edge of Danger by Cherry Adair Page A

weren’t the authorities. They were possibly crazy, and absolutely dangerous. They wanted information from her. She’d get information from them. “What exactly do you do for our government?”
     
      “Freelance work.”
     
      Eden set down her spoon, hiding the tremble in her hand. “Mercenaries.”
     
      “Counterterrorist operatives,” he corrected, still scowling.
     
      Rude bastard. She glanced at Sebastian. “Does that mean I threw up on your shoe phone?” she asked sweetly.
     
      “Look, lady,” Gabriel snarled, clearly at the end of his very short rope. “Cut the crap. Take my word for it. We’re the good guys. Exactly what the hell will your robotic pal do for the bad guys, Doctor?”
     
      She was tempted, God, was she tempted to tell them she’d invented a robot that did excellent pedicures. They’d let her go. Or kill her. She might be scared, but she damn well refused to be intimidated. “Anything.”
     
      A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Give us an example of ‘anything.’ ”
     
      Rx793, Rex, was Eden’s pride and joy. She’d worked on the robot for more than ten years. “I hadn’t finished running the variables,” she told the two men reluctantly. “He wasn’t nearly finished yet. I still had at least six months, maybe more—”
     
      Gabriel wound his hand indicating she get on with it.
     
      “When he’s completed he’ll be impervious…to just about anything. Heat. Cold. Chemicals. Toxins. Rex will have the ability to go into the most intense burning building to perform rescues impossible for a human. He can be used to clean up chemical spills, go into any toxic environment and bring back samples.”
     
      “What the fuck was Verdine thinking?” Gabriel pushed away from the table to pace. “Anyone with half a goddamned brain cell would know that having something this sophisticated would appeal to every damned terrorist on the planet.”
     
      She pressed a hand to her stomach and said almost desperately, “The marketing people at Verdine Industries have been talking to firefighters, law enforcement agencies, and the CDC. He’s an enormous breakthrough in AI. I’m doing a symposium on him in Berlin nex—”
     
      The two men made eye contact, and Eden felt a premonition-type shiver run up her spine. She had to tell the right people just how much more advanced she’d made the robot. She’d done everything she was telling her kidnappers. And more. If the American government didn’t put her in front of a firing squad on the spot, they’d probably throw her in jail for sixty lifetimes. She hadn’t known how far she could go. Was that defendable?
     
      “Tell us how to destroy it, and we’ll let you go.”
     
      Her mouth was dry, but she couldn’t make herself pick up the cup in front of her to take a sip of tea. “I can’t.”
     
      “Can’t, doctor? Or won’t?”
     
      “The Rx793 can’t be destroyed. It was made to be indestructible.”
     
      “Nothing’s indestructible,” he said grimly. “We don’t have all day here, Doctor. What will annihilate your robot?”
     
      “Nothing.” Nothing but another Rex just like it. But since she was never going to let that happen, it wasn’t worth mentioning.
     
      “How about a duplicate?” he demanded.
     
      My God, was he a mind reader? Eden thought, horrified. She debated for a few seconds whether to lie or tell him the truth. “Possibly,” she said reluctantly. “If there was another such bot. There isn’t.”
     
      “There will be,” he said grimly.
     
      Eden didn’t bother correcting him.
     
      “What’s its fuel source?”
     
      “An extremely inexpensive thirty-two-processor distributed control system. It runs asynchronously with no central locus of control.” No. Worse. Much worse. She’d given Rex an easily renewable hydrogen fuel cell. All he needed to run for three hours was a cup of water.
     
      “Does the arm need a parallel