Unfinished

  UNFINISHED

  By: Kendra C. Highley

  Copyright ? 2014 by Kendra C. Highley. All rights reserved.

  First Edition: December 2014

  Editors: Shelley Holloway and Cassandra Marshall

  Cover Design: Streetlight Graphics, https://www.streetlightgraphics.com/

  LISCENSE NOTES

  DISCLAIMER

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are a work of fiction or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Part One

  Part Two

  Part Three

  Epilogue

  UNSTRUNG Sneak Peek

  Other Books by Kendra C. Highley

  Part One

  Ten Years Ago

  Quinn watched the monitor. Its camera was trained on the prep room where the new K700 prototype was under development. She was only the second model in this line, and the first female.

  His match.

  His heart fluttered with excitement. Miss Maren had told him the little girl was going to be his friend. Created specifically to keep him company and learn with him. After spending most of his time in the company of adults-both human and artificial-he could hardly wait to meet her.

  Lexa. That would be her name.

  She was still pale, her hair almost as white as her skin, just like the day before and the day before that. He wondered when she would change colors, and what color she would be, but Doc Mendal had said not to pry, so he didn't ask. He'd learned that if he asked the wrong questions-or too many in a row-that his curiosity would cause trouble. And pain.

  The girl stared blankly into space, but he could tell she was afraid by the way her knuckles whitened as she clutched her blanket. Or the way her right eyelid twitched every so often. Being scared was a good sign-it meant she was turning into a person.

  He immediately flushed, feeling bad. He didn't want her to be scared, and it wasn't nice to be glad about it. He remembered the prep room. He remembered the fear. No, it wasn't nice to be glad.

  Dr. Martine cocked his head. "Quinn, what's Lexa thinking? Any guesses?"

  "She's?wondering where she is, and why she's here," he said after a moment. Even though he was watching her over the feed, he could read her mannerisms easily, which was strange. But if Lexa had been made to be his best friend, maybe that was why he could tell how she felt.

  He watched her a moment longer, registering how her chest rose and fell more quickly as the fear turned into panic and grief. "She thinks something's wrong with her." Quinn turned to Dr. Martine. "Please, we need to let her out."

  "We can't. You know that. No cross-contamination until imprinting is complete." Dr. Martine tapped his stylus against his data pad. "But maybe we could let you in? What do you think? You want to try?"

  Quinn's heart leapt. He tried hard to keep the eagerness out of his voice when he said, "Oh, yes. I think she might talk to me."

  "Well, then, let's-"

  The door at the back of the observation lab swooshed open and a pair of high heels clicked toward them. Quinn rounded his shoulders to sink a little shorter. I'm not a threat. I'm not a threat. I'm invisible.

  Cool fingers tipped with long, pointed fingernails, brushed the back of his neck. A welt rose up on the sensitive skin below his hairline where they scratched. He held very still.

  Invisible. Not a threat.

  "Hello, dear," Miss Maren said, releasing Quinn to give Dr. Martine a kiss on the cheek. He didn't look too happy about it, even though Miss Maren was supposedly his girlfriend. "Any progress?"

  "Um?" He shot a look at the girl behind the glass. "Well, we were thinking about exposing her to some stimuli to see if she's ready for advanced configuration. Namely, I thought I'd send Quinn in. She'd be less likely to see him as a threat, given her programming."

  Quinn balled his fists around the hem of his T-shirt. Please. Please don't say no.

  Miss Maren pinned him with her eyes. Calculating. That was the vocabulary word he'd use. It meant shrewd. Which sounded a lot like shrew. Which meant mean, screechy lady.

  He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. It wouldn't be a real smile anyway, he reasoned. It would be a nervous I'm-not-hiding-anything smile, and a vaguely disinterested look was required if he hoped to get what he wanted.

  Because that's what Miss Maren was good at. She found out what he wanted, then took it away.

  After a long, long, long stare, she finally nodded. "A short visit, perhaps. Five minutes."

  Five minutes? That was all? The look on her face, though. She wanted him to argue. If he argued, she could tell him no.

  "I can be in and out in four, if that's better," he said.

  Her eyes widened and she nodded in approval. "Very well."

  Dr. Martine gave him a pat on the back and opened the door to the clean room. "Full measures. No contamination."

  Right, no touching. Doc Mendal had told him her immune system was still developing and his germs could hurt her. Inside the clean room, which was just a little hall between the observation lab and her prep room, he pulled a white jumpsuit out of the cubby. It covered him from his neck to his toes and had a hood attached to the back to cover his head. The suit crackled every time he moved. It was polymer based and felt like a trash bag.

  By now, the little girl was hugging herself and rocking back and forth on her white bed. Quinn hurried to don a pair of latex gloves. She would be better if she could just meet him. He knew it. She needed a friend; that would fix everything.

  He gave a thumbs up to Dr. Martine, and the airlocks opened with a clank. When her door opened, she started, staring wide-eyed as Quinn stepped inside.

  "Who are you?" she whispered.

  Good, so she could talk. They'd loaded her brain with all the right prompts, but they hadn't been sure. "I'm Quinn."

  She nodded slowly. "Who am I?"

  He blinked fast to clear the tears smarting in his eyes. The white room did that-it made you feel hopeless, helpless. Just being in here?it was awful. "You're Lexa."

  "Lexa," she said, like she was trying out the word in her mouth. "Lexa. Is that a good name?"

  "Very good," he told her. "It means 'defender of the people.'"

  Her forehead scrunched up. "Are there more?"

  "More what?"

  "People? Are we the only two? Or are there more?"

  A smile stretched across Quinn's face. She was so serious when she asked that it was almost funny. Almost. "Yes. Lots and lots. When you're finished here, you'll meet some of them."

  He waited for her to ask how long, but instead, she said, "I like you."

  "I like you, too." Quinn flushed, and he suddenly didn't know where to rest his hands. He locked them behind his back to keep them out of the way. "You don't have to be scared anymore, okay? Soon you'll move into the dorm with me, and we'll play all kinds of games."

  "Are you good at games?" she asked.

  "Some," he said, hoping it sounded modest. He didn't know why, though. Usually he talked smack with the other artificials, knowing he was faster and smarter than many of them, even if his biological age was only nine and a half. But there was something about Lexa? He wanted her to feel like she was equal. She had been created to be his equal, right? He should treat her that way.

  "Then I'd like to play," she said shyly.

  "Great!" He took a step closer. "We can play hide and seek, except I'll hide an object, and you have to try to guess where I hid it. Would you like that?"

  "You'd hide it under the third pillow of the couch," she said.

  Quinn froze. "How did you know that?"

  "Is that right?" she asked. "Did I guess?"

  "Y
es." How did she know that? She didn't even know they had a couch, let alone that it would be his first choice for hiding something. "You guessed right."

  She flushed-it completely changed the way she looked. It made her look more alive. "I guessed right."

  Quinn reached out a hand, forgetting Dr. Martine's warning. Lexa's eyes widened in panic, and she scooted against the headboard of her bed. "Who are you? What do you want?"

  He froze. "I-I'm Quinn. Remember? Your friend."

  "Leave me alone! Help!" She raked her fingers through her white hair. "Seven, two, three-three, six, fourteen. Seven, two, three-three, six, fourteen."

  Not sure what else to do, he backed out of the room. As soon as the airlocks hissed shut, the clean room door opened. Dr. Martine looked disappointed.

  Miss Maren looked smug. Another vocabulary word. It meant she was right about something, and Dr. Martine was wrong.

  And that made her happy.