A Toaster on Mars Read Online Free PDF Page A

thousands of agents can’t track him down, then no one can.’ He paused. ‘You’re on light duties until further orders.’
    ‘Light duties…’
    ‘Show Agent Steel how we do things in Neo City,’ he said. ‘That’s an order.’
    Giving them one last nod, Cecil Pomphrey left. Blake fell back into the bed and stared up at the ceiling.
    I’m off the Badde case. How can that be? I’m the expert on Badde!
    He had to get out of here and back to work.
    Struggling to sit up, he said, ‘Hey, Doc, you finished there?’
    The doctor stepped back from his leg with a satisfied grunt. ‘Goot as new,’ he said, admiring his handiwork.
    Blake started to climb out of the bed but felt an odd tugging at his leg again.
    What the—?
    ‘Sprot!’ Blake snarled.
    The leg was on back-to-front.
    ‘Vell,’ the doctor muttered. ‘Nobody’s perfect.’

5
    Blake and Nicki left the hospital. Although Blake didn’t have a bounce in his step, he at least had an air of satisfaction. He was free of the hospital. Now he just had to get rid of this robot—correction, cyborg.
    ‘It’s quite a town,’ Nicki said.
    ‘It is.’
    Blake gave her a sideways glance. The assistant director might have placed him on light duties, and given him a toaster to babysit, but there were times when you had to follow the rules, and times when you had to screw them up and throw them away. This was one of those times.
    Maybe he could send her out for coffee. He knew a really good place—on Jupiter.
    Except Nicki Steel didn’t seem the type to take orders. It was hard to believe they would hand a badge and a weapon to someone made of metal and plastic. What was the world coming to?
    Blake’s stomach growled. He took out his two bottles of food. One was bacon and eggs, but the other—
    Sprot.
    Sighing, he swallowed one of the bacon and eggs pills.
    ‘Do you ever eat any healthy food?’ Nicki asked.
    ‘That’s none of your business.’
    ‘Are you always this painful, Agent Carter?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I hope that isn’t going to affect our working relationship.’
    ‘We don’t have a working relationship.’
    ‘You’re a funny guy. About as funny as that movie Snakes on a Space Station .’
    Zeeb says:
    In case you didn’t see the film, she’s referring to the version made in 2455, not the later one starring the Harrison Ford/Charlie Chaplin clones. It was a good film, but not as good as Rubatars on an Asteroid . Let’s face it—few things are as scary as rubatars.
    ‘We’re working together,’ Nicki said, ‘whether you like it or not. So maybe you should start acting like a cop and ask me some questions.’
    ‘Like what? Your favourite oil?’ Blake shook his head. ‘Look, I don’t want to offend you. I’m sure you’re very skilled, but if I wanted a partner—which I don’t—it wouldn’t be a robot.’
    ‘ Cyborg . And why not?’
    ‘You can’t shoot suspects,’ Blake said. ‘Robots can’t kill people.’
    ‘What part of “I’m not a robot” don’t you understand? I’m a cyborg. I can shoot, maim and kill—and I might start with you!’
    That stopped Blake. ‘I’ve never met a…er…cyborg before,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know we made them.’
    ‘You make me sound like a can of beans.’ Nicki turned away. ‘I wasn’t designed on Earth. I was built… elsewhere. I was found on Vargus Four. I had no name. No memory. It was as if I had been wiped blank. A family took me in and raised me as their own.’
    ‘Even if I were ready to work with a toaster—’
    ‘Which I’m not,’ Nicki said through gritted teeth.
    ‘—I’d need someone who can do everything a human can.’
    ‘I can—and more. I’ve got double the strength, speed and agility of a normal human. Plus my brain is built from pure quazitone.’
    ‘Quazitone. That’s amazing.’
    ‘You don’t know what it is, do you?’
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘It’s a compressed substance made from the residue found at the event horizon of a black