Lockbox

Year 2188 Tactic City, Former African Continent

Cyborg Cryo Elsin couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this relaxed in public. Diners packed, Vipe, Tactic City's most exclusive restaurant, but the low lighting, the soft, rich cocoa smell of his velvety red wine, and the company of his two cyborg friends allowed him to keep his chair despite the very full house.

Then again, without the sound dampener, he'd placed on their table, the noise level alone would've driven him out of the place. But right at this moment, he felt…happy.

Really, he should know better than to trust that.

"You two talk about women like you're competing for who can break the most hearts. I'd think—" he broke off as a trio of waitstaff approached their table.

Ethan Legionaire and Dair Ranker—Cryo's oldest and well, only friends—contributed to the silence, waiting for the servers to clear their table and refill their drinks.

As soon as the last server, a slim, young woman with wide eyes and a flirtatious smile, walked out of hearing range, Ethan cocked a brow. "Did you just call us heartbreakers?"

Dair drained his Cognac and thumped the large tumbler glass on the table. The pair of ice cubes clattered inside, an accompaniment to his snicker. "Cry's just jealous—the closest thing he's ever had to a girlfriend is a doctor prescribed sex therapy bot, and they don't have hearts to break."

Eyes wide, Ethan turned to catch Cryo's reaction. Straightening in his chair, Dair shook his head. His shaggy hair brushed the collar of his white shirt. Cryo focused on that one insignificant detail, blocking out everything else, including his emotions. He kept the pain out of his eyes and off his face.

"Gods, I'm sorry, Cry. I didn't—I wasn't…shit."

Cryo counted down from three. Enough time to shove his emotions in a lockbox and stuff them into the back of his cyborg brain. With a deep breath, he raised his chin to meet Dair's gaze…and almost choked. His friend's face looked like a textbook example of remorse, almost a parody. And he would know. After the near-fatal injuries he suffered at age seven, Cryo sacrificed his childhood recovering from surgery after surgery and learning how to use his new body.

Training his brain to communicate with his facial muscles, so that he could show emotion, took more than a year. Of course, once the doctors and engineers were satisfied with his ability to produce what they termed 'the seven universal facial expressions,' Cryo had promptly decided never to use them again.

Gradually over time, the bio and cyber parts of his body reconciled most of their differences, but when his face or body betrayed him, he felt like a prisoner locked inside someone else's haunted house. In the last few years, he found it increasingly difficult to keep strong emotions off his face. But at least he could still control his words.

"Please don't concern yourself." Cryo waved the female server back to their table.

She returned with an even brighter smile and Cryo suddenly realized that her smile was set on him. She didn't recognize who or what he was. When she did...

He fell back on his manners, returning her smile with a reserved one of his own. "Thank you for your excellent service this evening." He handed her his card and she scanned it. "Please give the chef our compliments as well. Her dishes were exquisite as always."

A bright flush filled her cheeks and spread to her neck. She returned his card with the receipt, her fingers brushing his. As she walked away, Cryo started to put his card away and noticed handwriting on the receipt.

The server had written, "call me" in small, rounded letters. She'd signed it, Della, with her twelve-digit phone number written on the bottom. Apparently, she still didn't recognize him. He folded the small piece of paper and placed it in front of him on the table.

Time to go.

Dair snatched up the receipt and read the note. He passed the slip of paper to Ethan, who read it and smirked. "Gods, Cry, if you ever decide to join our game, I'm investing all my money in reparative heart technology. You break hearts without even trying."

Cryo stood and pocketed his sound-dampening device. His friends knew as well as he did that he'd never have received that note if the woman knew who, or more importantly, what he was.

Dair stood as well. "Please forgive me, Cry. I'm an idiot. My mouth moves without my brain's interference. You know ICRAD gave all the researched cybernetics to you and Ethin and pieced me back together with virgin tech."

ICRAD had saved their lives with cutting-edge cybernetic technology, but the knife cut both ways, leaving each of them with innumerable, unpredictable life-altering side effects.

"That old excuse," Ethan said, always first to try to lighten the mood. "Stop talking like you're Frankenstein's monster."

"You really should," Cryo joined in with the distraction. "Ethan's the one that looks like Frankenstein's monster."

The tension broke and his friends smiled. Cryo sloughed off his pain like a snake shedding skin. Ethan and Dair meant more to him than old pain and a bruised ego.

Following his friends through the maze of tables, out into the night, Cryo realized in the abrupt, startling way one does when stumbling upon the obvious, that while breaking hearts held no appeal for him, winning one, singular heart did. But what woman in her right mind would trust a cyborg with her heart?