Episode Two
The Forgotten:
Discovery
By
Kaitlyn O'Connor
© copyright by Kaitlyn O'Connor, January 2010
Cover Art by Alex DeShanks, January 2010
ISBN 1-978-60394-396-3
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author's imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
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Chapter Three
Clearly, they'd decided to make her a prisoner, Danielle told herself, not as convinced as she wanted to be that that was all they had in mind, but then she was well aware that her mind wasn't as sharp as it needed to be. Fear and shock shielded her, she was very much afraid, from most of the pain she should be feeling from the crash. She was pretty sure, though, that she wasn't injured beyond nearly being shaken to death from the entry and crash.
Of course, there was a possibility that that had caused some internal damage, but she tried to reassure herself that Gertrude hadn't seemed damaged and, surely, the computer would have scanned her for any sort of serious injury and reported?
Except Gertrude obviously wasn't nearly as dependable as she'd always assumed.
Dismissing those fears for a threat that seemed far worse at the moment, she played back everything that she could recall happening since she'd crashed, trying to decide whether the actions of her captors implied serious bodily danger. Gertrude had said they were robots, but they didn't behave like any robots she'd ever encountered.
Possibly because Gertrude had also said they were half biological beings?
So what should she make of that?
Something horrible had happened and they'd all been so terribly damaged that they'd replaced nearly fifty percent of their bodies with robotic parts? They were actually sentient beings, just enhanced, or repaired with robotics?
She would've been inclined to think so except their behavior thus far seemed a bit bizarre if they were biological entities with robotics. In any case, Gertrude had seemed to imply the opposite, that they were robots that had, for some reason, been made part mechanical and part biological. Considering that, she finally remembered that Gertrude had scanned them and said they had some sort of metal alloy chassis-not a skeleton.
They wouldn't have been born with a metal alloy chassis, she decided. That didn't make sense at all, and neither did any sort of calamity come to mind that would explain replacing their skeletons with a metal chassis. So that seemed to indicate that they'd been created as robots and enhanced with biological materials that made them seem human-or humanoid, biological not mechanical. But if she accepted that, then they were actually robots made to look like living beings, right?
So, maybe something, or someone, was controlling them and that explained the fact that they didn't actually behave entirely like robots?
She could almost swallow that, particularly since they'd all seemed frozen while they stared at her, almost as if they'd been shut down. The problem was that still didn't make everything fit neatly. If they were being controlled that would explain their seeming curiosity about her gender-or fascination-but why feel her up? Could the controller actually experience that? And what about the erections? That seemed purely a reaction to sexual interest and even if their controllers were interested, why would that manifest in erections on their … surrogates, if that was what they were?
And they'd seemed to be discussing the situation.
So maybe the place was inhabited by beings that didn't have bodies of their own, or were too weak or sick to handle physical tasks and the robots had been designed sort of as an extension of the living beings?
The one carrying her was taking her somewhere. To the creators of these cyborgs? How helpful would that be? At all? Not unless they had some way to communicate, because she hadn't made a lot of headway in that area so far.
The settlement the robot carried her into had walled fortifications surrounding it much like the settlements on her home world did and probably for the same reason-hostile environment, either dangerous animals or hostile primitives or maybe both. For all that, though, they didn't seem particularly concerned about security. The gates had been standing open long before they arrived and the man in the watch tower had abandoned it as soon as they entered, following her and her captor.
She'd been too shocked to react when she'd felt him grasp her legs and jerk them apart, but it didn't take much imagination to figure out he was examining her just like the one carrying her had and her reaction was just as instinctive. Ok, so maybe not entirely, not like it had been before. Anger had sparked it.
Dumb! It was a very bad idea to attack when she didn't have any way to truly defend herself-especially after the one carrying her had destroyed her pistol!
But maybe that supported the theory that they were robots being controlled by someone else? The fact that they didn't retaliate with force to equal or surpass what she'd used against them?
Not that she'd actually been thinking in those terms … unless it was subconscious?
She didn't think she could actually excuse her stupidity with that possibility. No, she just hadn't been using her head at all and she wasn't going to make it if she didn't start! She was outnumbered and even if she hadn't been, she was facing a far superior foe even one on one. They might, and probably were, smarter than her on top of that, but behaving like a fool wasn't going to help her. Trying to outwit them was the only weapon she had!
Unfortunately, she was late in arriving at that conclusion. She had the feeling the robot would've let her walk if she hadn't tried to escape the minute he dropped her on the ground. If she'd even restrained herself from trying to fight him while he was carrying her on his shoulder, she would've been in a better position to study her surroundings. Hanging from one arm, she couldn't see a lot besides the ground beneath her and that made her dizzy. About the only thing she could determine from that was that she'd been right about how tall they were and that they were amazingly strong-which wasn't nearly as amazing as it would've been if they'd been living beings rather than robots. It stood to reason that they would be created to lift and carry tremendous weight. The thing could probably carry two or three more just like her if its arm was long enough to reach around them.
She could see that the settlement didn't appear to be very large, though, which suggested a fairly small population-none of the buildings she'd noticed seemed to be more than two stories in height. She decided that even though they didn't seem to have space flight capabilities, she was clearly dealing with a very advanced race. The robots alone were an indication of that.
She didn't think either that fact or their seeming lack of aggression could be counted on to indicate them as peaceful, though. The robots had been fighting when she'd crashed.
They were prepared to defend themselves. They just didn't see her as any sort of threat?
When the robot carrying her paused, it dragged her from her fruitless mental exercise. Straining upward, she saw it had stopped in front of what she thought, at first, was a really strange looking building. It looked more like a pile of junk than a building, though, or more accurately, a tangle of metal and tubes and wires and circuits. Movement caught her eye and she discovered an insectoid looking robot was crawling over the heap. Almost as soon as she noticed that one, she noticed others, a lot of others, weaving in and out of the tangled mass. A shiver skated along her spine as it settled inside her that it looked like a carcass with insects feeding on it.
Abruptly, a voice emanated from somewhere inside the mass.
* * *
*
"This being was inside the space vehicle that crashed?"
"Yes. I have determined that it is a female of a race similar to the Danu," Kiel responded.
"In outward appearance."
"Yes. I brought it-her-so that you could scan her and determine what we should do with her."
"The others died in the crash?"
"There were no others."
Manuta was silent for several moments, apparently collating the information. "Of what sort was this craft that brought her?"
Reluctance flickered through Kiel. "It appears to be a war craft."
Manuta's silence that time worried him. It should not have. Manuta was not capable of anything but purely logical thought. The genetic materials added to them at times interfered with their own ability to be purely logical, confusing them with emotion, but Manuta did not have that failing. It would analyze the situation and arrive at a purely logical decision based upon all the data. It would not rush to make judgment. It would not be swayed by emotion and therefore could not be vindictive, and yet it did worry him, enough that he almost regretted the decision to leave the resolution in Manuta's hands.
If Manuta concluded that she represented a threat, it might well decide that she must be terminated.
"It does not appear that the craft might have been surveying this world with an eye to colonization?"
The question sounded almost wistful or perhaps hopeful? Mayhap Manuta was not entirely free of feelings after all? It had been created with artificial intelligence and it had had centuries to evolve and learn. Kiel wrestled with himself. "We cannot rule that out," he responded finally, comforting himself with the thought that it was not a lie when he did not know for certain. Suspicions were not the same as certainty so it was not a lie not to voice them. "I left the others examining the craft."
"Then I must wait until the data has been fully collated to determine how to proceed. I will scan her now, however, and catalogue her genetics. Place her in the scanner."
Nodding, relieved, Kiel lifted the female and passed through the doors that Manuta opened to allow him entry. When he reached the scanner, he encountered yet another display of resistance he had not anticipated. The moment he tried to deposit the female in the tube Manuta used for scanning, she braced both hands and both feet on the edges of the sides and refused to be pushed inside. Every time he pried one hand or one foot loose and tried to shove her in, she evaded him and planted them against the edges again.
Pausing after a few minutes to assess the situation, he finally realized that she was absolutely terrified and, short of binding her hands and feet, or breaking something, he wasn't going to stuff her in the tube.
Attempting to soothe her hadn't helped before and he still did not know her language, but he decided to try to get it across to her that they meant her no harm. Catching her face between his palms, he lowered his face close to hers and spoke in a soothing tone to her. "This will not hurt. It is nothing but a scanner. We mean you no harm here."
He felt a little uncomfortable voicing the last. He had no idea what Manuta might decide and it could mean termination.
* * * *
The box looked like a crusher. Danielle was too terrified from the moment she realized he meant to shove her into it to think beyond escaping and her fear was such that she didn't waste any time considering the futility of it. The moment he lifted her up to put her in, she braced both feet on the edges and shoved upward with all her strength. Inexorably, he managed to bend her over, trying to push her in head first, but she blocked that attempt by bracing her hands on the edges and locking her elbows.
She considered trying to kick him in the face to stun him, but she was braced for all she was worth and afraid the attempt would be all he needed to overcome her resistance. For several minutes, they engaged in a silent battle for dominance, with him removing first one foot and then the other, peeling her hands lose one at the time, but he wasn't in a position to pry more than one 'brace' lose at the time and she managed by grim determination to brace herself again before he could get more than one lose and overpower her.
Uneasiness, not triumph, swept through her when he abruptly ceased his efforts to shove her in. To her surprise, though, instead of waiting for her to let her guard down and pushing her in, he caught her face and tilted her head upward so that she had to look at him.
His expression seemed earnest and his tone soothing, but he was out of his fucking mind if he thought he was going to coax her into the damned thing! It flickered through her mind, though, that the others had seemed to find her sexually attractive. Maybe he hadn't, but she couldn't think of any other 'weapon' that might have the potential of disarming him.
"You don't want to do this!" she gasped desperately. "I'd be much more useful in one piece!"
She could see he had no idea what she was offering but the moment his hold on her face slackened, she surged closer to convince him. His lips parted in surprise, she thought, the moment she pressed hers to them. She could feel the jolt that went through him like a shockwave.
A myriad of thoughts rushed through her, foremost among them the realization that he was a cyborg and she was probably wasting her time trying to seduce him. Contrary to that thought, though, and despite the fear and desperation gripping her, her senses didn't register anything approaching laying a kiss on the side of her fighter-or her computer console. She felt the warmth and yielding of flesh against her own. A taste and scent that was pleasantly reminiscent of her last shared kiss with a human filled her mouth except it was decidedly more appealing than any kiss she could recall. Emboldened both by that and the fact that he hadn't instantly shoved her away or reeled away from her, she nibbled at his lips coaxingly with her own, tested the boundary with her tongue.
He threw her into total chaos at that. Seizing her with both hands, he plastered her so tightly against his length it forced the breath from her lungs. His mouth opened over hers and he began sucking at her and licking her mouth wildly. Beyond the 'wildness' of it, though, there was enough awkwardness to make it clear enough he'd never experienced a kiss before-and he displayed more than enough enthusiasm to make it equally clear that he liked it.
She wasn't sure if it was the kiss or the lack of oxygen that made a dark cloud descend over her, but she was still conscious enough to feel the sizzling jolt that went through her for a split second before she lost consciousness completely.
* * * *
"You may now place the entity into the scanner."
Kiel emerged from blackout and found himself staring up at the internal workings of Manuta. It took longer to identify what he was staring at than it should have, mostly because he was still trying to assimilate what had happened. Anger slowly replaced his confusion when he realized Manuta had sent an electrical jolt through him hard enough to render him unconscious. An indefinable fear speared through that, however, when it occurred to him that he'd been holding the female at the time.
Jolting upright, he looked around for her and discovered her crumpled in a tangled heap that sent another surge of fear and anger through him and brought him abruptly to his feet.
"She is unconscious now and will not resist."
His lips tightening with his anger, Kiel shot a look toward Manuta's optical sensor. "You have harmed her when I had only just promised that you would not!" he said angrily.
"You promised that before you began to try to eat her," Manuta responded. "I saved her from you. I cannot fathom what possessed you to consider eating her to begin with."
Kiel felt his face heat with discomfort. "I was not eating her!" he growled with a mixture of embarrassment, anger, and confusion. "I was … I was emulating her behavior! She tasted me first!"
"Then her people are cannibalistic. That seems … illogical for what appears to be an advanced race."
Kiel frowned, ready to defend her actions. He was convinced she had not tasted him with any intention of eating him if she found the taste appealed, but he was not cert
ain what her intentions were. "Mayhap she was trying to bite me to defend herself," he muttered, unconvinced himself since she had not made any attempt to do so. "Or it is some odd sort of custom."
"Mayhap I will better understand once I have collected more data. Place her in the scanning tube while she is unable to resist. The scan will be more accurate without movement."
Kiel was no longer certain he wanted to regardless of the fact that he had brought her to Manuta for that reason. "You will not harm her if I do?"
"I will scan her. Unless I discover her to be a dangerous species, it would go against my programming to harm her."
Kiel had already placed her carefully in the scanning tube and watched it close before it occurred to him that Manuta was only programmed not to harm the Danu. "I will take you apart if you harm her!" he growled.
Manuta did not respond, but then it would not feel threatened by his comment, he realized, even though he had intended it as a warning and a promise. Truth be told, he was not entirely certain of why he had even made the threat. As Manuta had said, there was no logical reason to harm her unless she was a dangerous species and he could see for himself that she was not. She had had every reason and every opportunity to display deadliness since her capture.
Of course, she had thrust the barrel of her pistol beneath his chin, but she could have pulled the trigger without warning and she had not. He would have been caught completely off-guard since his focus was on examining her mammary glands. The others had not been as alert as they should have been, for that matter. She had had a distinct advantage in that moment and could reasonably have expected to have slain or incapacitated enough of his men to escape and yet she had not.
He found that waiting for the scan to be completed unnerved him, though, that he could not completely banish the thought from his mind that Manuta would decide that she was a dangerous species and terminate her before he could stop it.
"Scan complete," Manuta announced after a time, opening the tube and displaying the female once more.
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