by Cynthia Sax
She’d submit to him. His gaze dropped to her nipples. She couldn’t conceal her body’s response. Her musk filled his nostrils.
Mira turned her head and looked in his direction. She couldn’t see him, her gaze searching the darkness, not locking onto his face. But she was aware of him and that warmed his chest.
She sniffed, dismissing him, sending the message that she didn’t consider him to be a threat. It was a taunt he couldn’t ignore. When she strode along the path, away from the domicile and away from him, her hips swaying, Vapor followed her, aroused and intrigued.
She was a mystery and he would solve her.
Chapter Two
That damn cyborg was following her again.
Mira stomped toward the compound’s front gates. She felt every imperfection in the stone pathway through the soft soles of her flimsy footwear.
Desire added to that discomfort. Her nipples were tight and her pussy was wet. She reacted this way only when Vapor was near. Mira suspected that whatever made him an unparalleled killing machine also boosted his sex appeal.
She couldn’t stop her reaction and she couldn’t stop him. Vapor was her father’s best warrior, his name appropriate because he resembled mist. No chamber was able to hold him. No lock was complex enough to keep him in.
At one with the darkness and as silent as the night, the cyborg never talked to her, never touched her. But his presence was enough to disrupt her concentration and she had to focus this planet rotation. One slip up and beings would die.
Mira strode faster. Her outfit wasn’t designed for walking, her tight skirt slowing her progress, but it was what all of the society ladies were wearing.
She had to fit in. Her mother hadn’t done that and she had died. Betrayed by her best friend, by her husband, and inadvertently by her daughter, she’d been executed for treason.
Mira wouldn’t make the same mistakes. She ensured that she looked like the others and she confided in no one, hiding her true feelings under an impregnable mask.
“Your guests have arrived,” Grenk, the guard, called to her from his position at the gate.
“My guests are high ranking officials in the Humanoid Alliance.” She stopped and glared at the humanoid, playing the role every being expected of her—Mira, the nastiest female in the universe. “They were on the list of approved visitors, yet you, a lowly employee without rank or significance, dared to interrogate them, asking them what their business was here.”
Grenk gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “They told you.”
“They didn’t need to tell me.” That was a lie. They did need to tell her. “I’m the Designer’s daughter.” Mira glanced upward. There were no monitoring devices. Her father was paranoid about others stealing his precious technology and didn’t allow monitors in the compound. But the guard didn’t know that. “I see everything you do, Grenk, everything,” she stressed. “I know that when you’re guarding the gates, pain suppressors go missing from the medical bay.”
“You have no proof.”
“Don’t I?” Mira lifted one eyebrow.
The color drained from the guard’s face. “My daughter is sick.”
“You don’t have a daughter.” His lie was another reminder that she couldn’t trust anyone. “I know exactly who you’re selling the pain suppressors to and how much you’re charging.” He wasn’t the only being scared of her. “Insult my guests again and I’ll pass that information to my father. The last being who betrayed him didn’t last long in the fighting ring.” She lowered her gaze and curled her top lip. “I doubt you’d do much better.”
“I—”
“You’ve done enough talking.” She raised her palm. “You’re boring me.” Mira walked away from him.
Aware that Grenk was watching her, she wandered from building to building, verbally ripping apart any employees she saw. The smart ones avoided her. The others deserved it. No one working with her father was innocent.
Even if they were, she’d still carve them to pieces with her tongue. It was expected. She was the meanest female in all of Tau Ceti.
Vapor continued to trail her. That didn’t worry her…much. He wouldn’t tell any beings about her activities.
He couldn’t, not without drawing attention to his own misconduct. All of the cyborgs were supposed to be locked up in their respective structures. If he were caught, he’d be decommissioned.
She wandered until she was certain he was the only being following her. Then she slipped into the stage two structure, hurried along the hallway, accessing doors with her palm print. It had taken her solar cycles of maneuvering in addition to her position as the Designer’s daughter to gain access to the security system. Now, no area in the compound was restricted to her.
Vapor didn’t follow her into the structure. The interior was brightly lit, with no place to hide. He must have thought the risk of discovery was too great.
He couldn’t see her and he couldn’t hear her. The structure was specially designed to block sound. The added expense made her father grumble but it allowed the newly manufactured cyborgs to sleep soundly, undisturbed by their older brethren. That aided in their growth.
It also meant Mira could be herself, could have these last precious moments with K017282.
She entered the third chamber. The space was filled with incubators, and unoccupied by other humans. There wasn’t a need for caregivers. The baby cyborgs were hooked up to feed and waste tubes.
Cyborgs also didn’t require guards…or so her father believed. He thought he’d created the perfect weapon, machines that acted only on command.
He wasn’t aware that one of his finest creations was stalking around the compound, following his own internal orders, spying on her for who knows what reason.
Mira strode to incubator 282 and peeked through the glass. The other cyborgs in the batch had almost outgrown their enclosures and were ready to progress to stage three. In one solar cycle, they’d be full grown, their development accelerated to provide the Humanoid Alliance with warriors as quickly as possible.
K017282, in contrast, still resembled a newborn human. His nanocybotics count was low. He was more human than machine and, if he remained in the chambers when the single sun of Tau Ceti rose, he’d be labeled a defective unit and be decommissioned, scrapped for parts.
Mira couldn’t allow that to happen. She opened the incubator and unhooked his tubes. K017282 cooed at her, blowing bubbles out of his mouth, oblivious to the danger he was in.
“No being will hurt you,” she murmured. “I found you a new mommy and daddy.”
She wrapped him in his black warming cover and lifted him out of the incubator, cradling him in her arms. “They’re very nice beings. I researched them for you. They can’t have offspring of their own.” Their last attempt, a little girl, had lived for three planet rotations before dying. That had almost destroyed the mother.
Having lost her own mother, Mira knew how devastating the loss of a loved one could be. She understood the female’s desire not to have that happen again.
“This couple will do anything to make you theirs.” Including defy the Humanoid Alliance. “Because you’re the perfect baby. You won’t ever get sick or die.” K017282 had enough nanocybotics to ensure that. “And you’re adorable.”
With his brown hair, dark eyes, tanned skin and determined chin, he resembled Vapor when he’d been the same level of maturity. Vapor had matured within the solar cycle expected of cyborgs. She suspected K017282 would grow at a more human rate. That would please his new parents, give them longer to care for him.
“They’ll love you. How could they not?” She nuzzled her nose against the baby cyborg’s and he giggled, the sound bubbling inside her.
“That’s very unseemly for a future warrior.” She smiled, his joy infectious. “Some might say unworthy of this.” Mira drifted her fingers over the model number inked under his right eye. He laughed again, kicking his little legs.
“None of that when we exit, tiny
male.” She bounced him in her arms, drawing more squeals of joy. “I’m Mira the Merciless. You’ll ruin my reputation.”
Her carefully cultivated reputation assured her safety. No being would suspect her of kindness, of sparing the life of what many considered to be a machine, a disposable weapon to be used and discarded.
“Only you know my secret.” Mira snuggled the baby cyborg close to her. “And you’re not telling any being, are you, K017282?” His brown eyes twinkled. “No, you’re not.”
She walked around the perimeter of the chamber, gently jiggling him. As she passed his incubator once more, there was a pinch on her breast. She gazed down. The baby cyborg had latched onto her cloth-covered nipple with his mouth and was attempting to suckle from her, thinking she was his mother.
Her heart squeezed. Would she ever have a child of her own? That would require trusting another being and she didn’t think she could do that. Beings betrayed other beings.
No one knew that better than she did. Mira had seen her mom die because of misplaced trust. She’d never make that same error.
Mira allowed K017282 to try to suckle from her breast for a few moments, cherishing the tugging sensation, the feeling of another being needing her, not knowing if she’d ever experience the connection again.
She didn’t want it to end. Mira wanted to hold the baby cyborg forever, care for him, watch him grow.
That wasn’t possible. She reluctantly pulled him away from her breast. “I have to get you to your new parents while I’m still able to let you go.”
Mira closed the incubator and strode with him through the chamber, along the hallway, authorizing doors to open. Once she was done with the relay, she’d log into the security system and erase all signs of her presence.
She exited the exterior door, the baby cyborg tucked in her arms. Vapor waited for her somewhere in the darkness, watching her. Her body’s instant arousal told her that.
He’d hate her when he found out what she was about to do but that was a price she’d have to pay. Mira strode forward, her countenance cold. K017282’s life was worth more than Vapor’s respect.
She pushed through a gate and entered the transport waiting area. A small ship was already stationed there, hovering above the ground.
As she approached the vessel, the doors opened and a couple stepped out. The male was stout and round and adorably nervous, his gaze flicking from her face to the bundle she was carrying and back again. The female was tall and thin. Her eyes sparkled and her fingers fluttered against her chest.
They wanted K017282, would love him as he deserved to be loved. Mira allowed none of her relief to show, maintaining her haughty attitude. “Did any being follow you?”
“No.” The male straightened. “We abided by your rules, following the same routine we’ve followed for ten planet rotations.”
“We did everything you asked,” the female chimed in.
Mira hoped they had. Any fuck-ups would get them all killed. “Do you have the untraceable credits?”
“Here they are.” The male passed her two chips.
She tucked them into a hidden pocket in her skirt. One would be given to her father, a bribe for his silence. The other would be saved for future expenses. “You’ll leave the planet immediately. Once you arrive on a planet outside of Humanoid Alliance control, you’ll remove its model number. You’re responsible for your actions and for it.” She dipped her head toward the baby cyborg. “If you’re caught and I’m implicated, I’ll claim you stole it from the compound, understand?”
The male swallowed hard and glanced at his wife. She nodded. “We understand.”
Mira held out the baby. They didn’t move.
“You paid for it.” She huffed with feigned irritation. “Take it or I’ll dispose of it.” A selfish part of her wished they wouldn’t take the baby cyborg, that she could hold the infant forever.
“Don’t do that.” The female scooped K017282 out of her arms. “We want it…him.” She pushed the warming cover away from his cheeks and her face softened. “Oh stars, do we want him. He’s perfect.”
He was perfect. Mira resisted the urge to snatch the baby back. Keeping him wasn’t an option. K017282 wouldn’t survive another planet rotation at the compound. With his new mother and father, he’d have a home, be loved, live a long lifespan.
“If it was perfect, I wouldn’t be selling it.” She was unable to disguise the gruffness in her voice and hoped the couple wouldn’t notice it. “Our business is done. Leave before you draw any more suspicion to me.” Or before they invoked the ire of the grown cyborg watching them.
She couldn’t bear to watch them return to their ship. Her heart was splitting in two. Mira turned and walked away, struggling to suck back the emotion, the sense of loss.
The stars sparkled above her, set on a covering of black…like the fabric wrapped around K017282. Would he live close to one of those suns? Would he remember her, think of her with kindness?
Would any being?
Mira followed the gray stone linking the compound’s rectangular buildings. The structures were functional but extremely ugly. She focused on them and not on the gaping hole in her heart. The compound had been built seven solar cycles after her mom’s death, a reward for her father’s continued loyalty to the Humanoid Alliance.
She’d thought the new compound, new planet, would mean a fresh start. It hadn’t. Many of the Humanoid Alliance officials from Erinome V, their previous home planet, had been assigned to Tau Ceti. The cycle of slowly starving the local beings until they rebelled and then stealing their resources had continued.
Lydna Listmann, her mom’s so-called friend, the female who had convinced an eight solar cycle old Mira to share her mom’s treacherous secret, was one of the relocated humans. Her husband was the planet’s Humanoid Alliance council representative and Lydna ruled over the society events. Mira couldn’t avoid her.
Her presence served as a constant reminder than no being could be trusted.
Mira turned a corner and stopped.
A familiar silhouette, shrouded in shadows, blocked her path.
“You smell like him.” Vapor’s deep voice flowed down her spine, along her arms and legs.
“Are you recording this?” It was a struggle to maintain her cool persona. She burned for his touch, her need wild and barely controlled.
He paused for one heart pounding moment. “No.”
She relaxed. Cyborgs were unable to lie. “Which him are you referring to? There have been so many different males.”
There had been. Once. Solar cycles ago, she had tried to lose herself in sex. It hadn’t worked so she had given up on relationships, focusing on her mom’s favorite causes—freeing the suppressed, feeding the hungry, righting the wrongs the Humanoid Alliance had created.
“You lie to me, female.” Vapor stepped into the light. The cyborg was hard—hard eyes, hard face, hard body. His tall, broad form was encased in black battle armor. His fingers rested on the hilts of his daggers. He could kill her before she made a sound and she couldn’t stop him.
That aroused her.
She was truly fucked-up.
“There haven’t been many males.” His dark eyes glittered. “I smell only one on you.”
Could he smell what K017282 had done, what she’d allowed the baby cyborg to do? “Why are you out of your cage?” Mira covered up her embarrassment with aggression.
“I had the urge to kill.” Vapor caressed his daggers, drifting his fingertips over the metal, his hands moving up and down, up and down. “The Designer frowns on us killing other cyborgs.” He leaned over her and lowered his voice. “Would any being miss you, I wonder?”
No being would. She tilted her head back, meeting his gaze. “Kill me and you’ll be decommissioned.”
Vapor extracted the daggers from their sheaths. “It might be worth it.” He brushed the flat of the blades over her cheeks. The metal was cool. His touch was slow and surprisingly gentle. “I hear every doomed
cyborg gets a visit from Mira the Merciless.”
Those visits were another risk she took. Decommissioned cyborgs remained conscious while dissected, given a prolonger, so they felt everything. Her father’s explanation was that it ensured the parts harvested worked.
Mira couldn’t change that process. She’d tried and failed.
But she could save as many cyborgs as she could from that fate. When that wasn’t possible, she could ease their trauma. She visited the doomed cyborgs, under the pretense of taunting them, and injected the males with pain suppressors.
Their deaths remained horrific. She remembered the last decommissioning, the look on the cyborg’s face and flinched.
“Careful, female.” Vapor slid his daggers down her neck. “You don’t want to damage your soft white skin. Humans don’t repair quickly.”
“You don’t care if I’m damaged.” Her breathing turned ragged.
“Not caring is in my programming. I was designed to hurt, to kill.” He traced the M design on the bodice of her fabric wrap. His nose twitched. “You were designed to deceive, to tell lies with that pretty mouth of yours.”
Those lies benefited his kind. Mira studied his grim face, yearning to tell him the truth. She was tired of being alone, of no one knowing her true self and she needed his participation for her plans next planet rotation.
But Vapor could betray her. If asked a direct question, he would have to either tell the truth, revealing her secrets, or stay silent, risking reprimand, possibly death.
He wouldn’t die for her. No being would.
“Why do you smell like that cyborg you sold?” Vapor leaned closer to her.
“I don’t smell like a machine,” she lied
His nose wrinkled. “You do.”
Vapor surveyed her body with his blades. He was careful, not making a single incision, his weapons being an extension of his hands.
“You told me a lie. Now, tell me one thing that’s true.” He skimmed the metal over her breasts, encircling her taut nipples. “That is, if you’re capable of truth.”