Auxem: A Science Fiction Alien Romance (TerraMates Book 13)

by Lisa Lace

  “You didn’t even let me give you a blow job,” Jenny complained from underneath him.

  Alex pushed himself up on his arms to see if she was joking. Her luscious pink lips were pouting at him. “I’m sure we can find an opportunity to do that,” he replied. He would gladly spend another late night at the office to have that mouth wrapped around his cock.

  “I’m good at it, too,” she boasted. “I’ll suck your brains right out through your dick.”

  Alex instantly regretted coming so fast, but Jenny was getting up and putting her pants back on. They wandered through the rows of cyborgs to the doors.

  “If they could see us, do you think any of them would know what we were doing? I know we’ve taken out all of their emotions, but sex isn’t an emotion for a guy. It’s just instinct.” She eyeballed the camouflaged crotches with interest.

  “I doubt it,” Alex said. He wasn’t sure if he was right. After all, it wasn’t testable. He mostly didn’t want her to think about it too much. Jenny was wild enough already. He wouldn’t be surprised if he caught her trying to have sex with one of them, and he wanted her all to himself.

  * * *

  The two scientists had been so caught up in their rutting that they weren’t thinking about work. If only one of them had been near a desk computer or in the main control room, they would have seen the blinking red light. Even though they had glanced at some of the soldiers on their way out, they hadn’t examined the one all the way at the end of the second row.

  His eyes were open and tracked their progress.

  CHAPTER 4

  Amanda leaned against the wall of the elevator as she rode it up to her apartment. It had been a long day, but the strain of her work never seemed to catch up to her until she was home. The elevator stopped and opened its doors, letting her out on her floor. She pulled out her keys as she headed for the door.

  When she had rented this apartment after college, she’d had big plans. Large sliding glass doors overlooked the city, and she had immediately begun making notes for how she wanted to decorate her first living space. It would be the perfect place to bring a few friends over for a dinner party and drinks, but there would also be a nice reading nook where she could curl up with a good book.

  On a celebratory high after both graduating and being hired into Cyborg Sector, Amanda had picked out paint swatches, circled all the furniture she wanted in a catalog from the local outlet store, and had even asked her mother to go shopping with her. It wasn’t a big place, but it was hers. She loved the fact that it had two bedrooms because that meant she had plenty of room for exercise equipment.

  Moving her workout stuff into the spare bedroom and unpacking her boxes of clothes and books was as far as she had ever gotten. She quickly became so absorbed in her work that she was working longer hours than the job required. She wanted to find answers. Amanda soon forgot her college friends that she had been so excited to invite over. She simply didn’t have time to mess around with social matters. The walls remained stark white with only a few cheap bookshelves to break up the monotony. She hadn’t purchased any new furniture although she accepted a few castoffs from an aunt who moved out of the city.

  Amanda plopped down onto her old, saggy sofa with a sigh. How could she have been so stupid as to ask out Dr. Feldman? A co-worker wasn’t the worst option for him, but he was still way out of her league. Amanda had embarrassed and alienated herself in front of the person she admired most. It would be impossible to face him the next day, and she could only hope that he hadn’t shared her mistake with anyone else at Cyborg Sector.

  A large black binder sat on the old coffee table, and Amanda reached out to flip it open. She had begun collecting clippings of everything related to Cyborg Sector as soon as word started spreading to the public. Some of the articles were from actual newspapers, but the majority of them came from the Internet. Amanda used to spend hours looking up any information she could find on the project and the man behind it. It had inspired her to go into this field of work in the first place, and she kept the binder to remind herself of her goals as a scientist.

  Her parents encouraged her, taking her to any conventions or competitions in the tri-state area that were remotely related to her interests. Turning to the next page of the binder, Amanda found the blue ribbon she won in a robot-building contest in junior high. Students came from all the local schools. Amanda had been the youngest competitor there, and the only girl, but she had never let her gender or age intimidate her. If anything, it made her work harder to prove she could do it.

  “Fuck it,” she muttered to herself as she slapped the binder shut. “Why am I letting something this stupid bother me? I don’t need that jerk’s approval, and I certainly don’t need him to like me.” She stomped down the hall to the spare room.

  Originally, she was going to paint and decorate the space, but she had turned it into an exercise room. Her interest in interior design had waned quickly, leaving the room looking like nothing more than a bedroom with a treadmill and a weight bench instead of a bed, but she hadn’t lost interest in training her body. She loved the loose, rubbery feeling in her muscles after a good workout. Amanda’s interest in exercise went hand-in-hand with an interest in robotics. Learning how the body functioned was one of the things that made her a good engineer. Working in Cyborg Sector meant that she got to study robotics as well as the human body.

  Amanda increased the stereo’s volume and began warming up. She stretched and bent, preparing her body for what was to come. She pounded her feet on the treadmill, pumped her muscles on the weight bench, and wrapped it all up with some yoga to cool down. The full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door showed her all of her hard work was paying off. Her arms were slim and well defined, her stomach tight and flat, and her ass was firm. Only her breasts refused to cooperate with the rest of her body, overwhelming her small frame with their mass.

  After she had turned on the shower, Amanda stripped off her sweaty clothes and stepped into the hot stream of water. Exercising always made her a little horny, and she luxuriated in the curves of her body under the soapy lather. She ran her hands over her round breasts, appreciating their fullness much more here than she did in the mirror. Her thumbs rubbed gently over her nipples, arousing them to pink buds.

  Unable to resist, Amanda squeezed the rest of the lather out of her loofah onto her hand before slipping it between her legs. She ran her hands against the insides of her upper thighs, teasing herself. Her sighs echoed against the shower walls as her hand rubbed back and forth, knowing the places everything felt the best.

  Amanda bit her lip as she fantasized about Dr. Feldman walking into her bathroom and seeing her in all of her glory, soap dripping from every curve as she pleasured herself. He would want to join her, but she would make him wait and watch until she came. That would put him in his place. Only then would she let him in, looking at the water flowing down over his hard body and cascading over his cock. He would slip it inside her, pushing her against the wall of the shower with his efforts as he buried his face in her wet breasts.

  Amanda slipped a finger inside herself. It was a ridiculous fantasy, but it was fun. She rubbed a hand against her clit, moving faster and faster as she headed toward a climax. Her walls pulsed around her finger as she came. The neighbors could probably hear her moaning, but she didn’t care. They would have to get used to it.

  Throwing a towel around her body, Amanda headed back into the living room to watch a little television before going to sleep and starting everything all over again tomorrow. She wouldn’t let her small mishap with Dr. Feldman worry her. He could take his opinion and shove it up his ass. She was a good scientist, a good worker, and a good person. If he decided he wanted her, he was going to have to work for it.

  That night, Amanda tossed and turned in bed. She had gone to sleep in a good mood, feeling satisfied both physically and sexually. But her nightmares were haunted by images of a cyborg uprising. A revolt had never happened before,
but deep inside of her she knew the possibility was real.

  They came in her dreams. Flashing images of angry cyborgs cutting down the innocent humans around them as they escaped from the Cyborg Sector building. She watched, completely unable to move, as the soulless creatures stepped out of their cells and marched in formation toward the town.

  CHAPTER 5

  Amanda pushed up her glasses and ran a hand over her face. She held the bottle of cold water she had brought from home over her forehead. Her eyes were still puffy from the night before, an after-effect of staying up too late. It meant that anyone who knew her would automatically think she had been crying. Anyone who didn’t know her would think she was sick or had been stung by a bee.

  The elevator loudly chimed when it reached her floor, pounding its notes into her head. Why did they have to make the thing so loud? She felt like she was hung over, but a single shot of whiskey before bed couldn’t affect her this much. She was exhausted and emotionally wrung out.

  Amanda passed Jenny’s cubicle, noticing that she hadn’t arrived at work yet. Her computer monitor was still off and her lab coat was hanging on its hook. That was odd. Amanda was running a little later than usual, so Jenny definitely should be here already. At least she wasn’t around to harass Amanda about not going to the party last night.

  With a sigh, Amanda fell into her desk chair and turned on the computer. Scientists and researchers were still filtering in around her, most of them converging around the water cooler or the coffee station. The beginning of the day was never intense around Cyborg Sector. It was an unwritten rule that nobody bothered each other about work for the first hour. Glancing over her shoulder, Amanda noted that Dr. Feldman wasn’t in yet, either. She couldn’t be sure if he planned on being here today or not. He made his own rules.

  Taking a sip of water and turning back to her monitor, Amanda nearly spat the contents of her mouth all over the screen. The alert light was going off for AD-214 again. Checking the logs revealed it had gone off multiple times throughout the night. Pulling on her lab coat, Amanda rushed through the barracks door and headed straight for the far end of the second row. She was far more awake than she had felt just a moment ago.

  Her heart pounded in her chest as she passed the other cyborgs, not seeing them as she made her way to her destination. As a scientist, she knew she wasn’t supposed to get emotionally attached to her work. Everything was supposed to be fact, logic, and reason. There was no room for mushy sentimentality. Besides, these soldiers weren’t technically humans, and they didn’t have distinct personalities anymore.

  But AD-214 was different. He had been one of the first cyborgs she worked on, and she had made significant improvements to both his operating system and the biomechanics in his hand and leg. He was her pet project, and the amount of alerts in the system meant that something was wrong.

  Amanda stopped in front of his cell. The readout on his monitor was extremely active, and his eyes were open. They followed her movements as she turned off the alarm and checked his vital signs. It wasn’t unusual for a cyborg to watch a human working with them. In fact, this kind of activity was encouraged. The current theory was that it helped build their artificial intelligence system. But the fact that she hadn’t given the command for him to wake up unnerved her. He should be asleep until someone activated him.

  With no other options, Amanda released the lock on the bulletproof glass cage and swung the door open. She looked directly into AD-214’s blue eyes. “Follow me.”

  Amanda didn’t have to turn around to know that the cyborg had stepped out of his cell and was obeying orders. He was following her to the lab, a place they had been together many times before. She could do many things from the computer at her desk, but nothing beat hands-on testing in the lab.

  She shut the door behind them, grateful that they had the facility to themselves for the moment. If the other scientists found out that there was something unusual going on with this particular cyborg, they would ridicule her or want to help. She couldn’t imagine a positive result from either outcome.

  Following the standard protocol when working with the cyborgs, Amanda turned and addressed him directly. “Good morning, AD-214.”

  “Good morning, sir,” he replied, his back ramrod straight and his artificial hand touching his eyebrow in salute. All of the cyborgs were programmed to call everyone sir, regardless of their gender. His voice was distinctly human, deep and powerful.

  “We’re going to run through some basic tests this morning, soldier. Are you ready?” It had taken Amanda a little while to get used to commanding the soldiers like this. It felt odd to boss around these big, muscular men with serious faces, but after four years working in Cyborg Sector, it was finally second nature.

  “Sir, yes sir,” AD-214 replied.

  “Good.” Amanda programmed the computer in the lab to pick up the brain signals from AD-214. It would show her the resulting information immediately, but a copy would also be sent to her computer so she could study it later. “Raise your right hand.”

  The soldier instantly obeyed, raising his hand over his head.

  They went through several simple commands like this, Amanda asking him to move different parts of his body, step forward, step backward, blink three times, and turn about-face. It was the typical beginning of any session with a cyborg to ensure that they were capable of following simple commands before they were asked to do anything more complicated or dangerous.

  AD-214 followed each instruction to the letter. Amanda checked the computer. It showed her his brain waves, heartbeat, oxygen level, and temperature as well as the code responses output by the cybernetic chip implanted in his brain. For Amanda’s job, she had to be a part-time medical doctor as well as a robotics specialist.

  After he had passed the tests with flying colors, it was time to move on to examine his mind. “What is your name?”

  “AD-214, sir.”

  “What is your rank?” Amanda asked.

  “Captain of Blue Squadron, sir.” He looked off in the distance over her head, his gaze forward. The soldiers weren’t supposed to look the scientists in the eye.

  “Tell me your specialty.”

  “Battle strategy and command, sir.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “The Cyborg Sector of the United States military, sir.”

  Amanda crossed her arms as she studied her subject. He looked healthy, and in all preliminary tests, he seemed to be within normal operational parameters. What was wrong with him? “What did you do before you were in the military?”

  “I have always been in the military, sir.”

  “Where were you born?” It wasn’t technically Amanda’s job to get into the psychoanalytical details of the cyborgs, but she was curious. There was something unusual happening that kept this soldier awake at night, and she had to know what it was.

  Unlike his previous answers, AD-214 didn’t respond immediately to this question. His eyes wavered for a moment, as though looking for the answer in his brain, but he still didn’t look at her. “I don’t know, sir.”

  Amanda nodded. “Who am I?”

  The soldier looked directly at her. It was against his programming. He should have been able to scan her face with his peripheral vision and give her an answer. Instead, he stared at her with intense blue eyes, seeming to search her soul. He opened his mouth to respond but closed it again without saying anything.

  “AD-214, I asked you to identify me.”

  But the cyborg had no response. He only stared at her. Amanda checked the monitor. His brain waves were all over the charts, and his temperature and his heartbeat were steadily rising. There was something wrong with this soldier, something on a deeper level than she could tackle herself. It was time to contact the psychiatric department.

  “Please return to your cell,” Amanda said with a sigh.

  The cyborg didn’t hesitate, marching quickly toward the door that led back to the barracks. Amanda followed him, reco
nnected him to the life support system, and locked the door of his cell. The cyborgs always took a couple of minutes to enter full sleep mode, and she watched the soldier as she waited for sleep to overtake him.

  Contacting another department would be risky. She should discuss his issues with Dr. Feldman first. Of course, Dr. Feldman probably wasn’t here, and she could claim that as her excuse for going around him, but she knew it wouldn’t work forever. Even the psychiatric department might not be too much help. Either way, there was a possibility AD-214 would be destroyed.

  When the soldier’s eyes closed, Amanda turned around and headed for her desk. She had to make a phone call.

  CHAPTER 6

  AD-214’s eyes snapped open, and his interface booted up. Two people stood in front of his cell, staring at him.

  “Did you tell him to do that?” asked a man. AD-214 scanned his face. DR. GOLD, PSYCHIATRIST. STATUS: HARMLESS.

  “No. That’s the problem, Dr. Gold. He keeps waking up on his own. Alerts went off all night. I took him into the lab and ran him through the necessary tests. He did pretty well at first, but I asked him some more probing questions, and he stopped answering.” The readout on the blonde woman scrolled across his vision: AMANDA CONRAD, CYBORG SECTOR SCIENTIST. STATUS: HARMLESS. It was slightly different information from his scan earlier in the morning, and not quite the same as when he had seen her the night before. He saved the new data to his file on human interaction and continued his observation.

  Dr. Gold, an older gentleman with a graying beard and frizzy hair, turned his attention to Amanda. “What did you ask him?”

  She paused for a moment before answering. “Where he was born.”

  “Amanda! You know you can’t do that! Trying to get a cyborg to remember his human past before he became part of the program can be extremely dangerous. Don’t forget about the trials from the beginning when the cyborgs went into a murderous rage! You’re lucky he didn’t turn around and snap your neck.”