Amaryllis’ throat went dry. She debated for several moments, wondering whether it would seem less suspicious if she refused to accept their insistence that both hunter and hunted were cyborg, or if it was even safe to claim her humanity under the circumstances. She finally decided that she just wasn't comfortable insisting that she was not cyborg when she had no idea what the consequences might be to the discovery that she actually wasn't. “Why?"
He stopped, tilting his head slightly. A slow smile curled his lips. Amusement gleamed in his dark eyes and something indefinable curled in her belly in response. “We had few women."
Amaryllis’ knees went weak at the wealth of implications in that one, simple statement. A heated blush suffused her cheeks as her mind instantly leapt to what use the cyborgs might have for women.
It was absurd, of course. The cyborgs were imitations of human life, but imitation was a key word. They had been programmed to mimic human behavior and even some emotions, but they only appeared to experience emotion. They didn't actually feel as human beings did, and they could not experience desire—or anything else for that matter.
She didn't particularly care for the trend of her thoughts anyway. He was a design of sheer perfection, a gorgeous machine, but hewas a machine. Thinking of desire and this replica of a human being in the same context was nearly as insane as lusting over a toaster.
She finally decided that it was shock and confusion. She'd been lusting over Reese from the moment he was assigned to work with her—from the moment she'd first set eyes on him, to be truthful. She'd believed Reese was as human as she was—which was now up for debate and only added to her confusion—but there was no excuse for transferring those feelings to this cyborg, however much he reminded her of Reese. “Uh. I don't think I follow."
He lifted his dark brows, and then frowned, as if working through an internal debate. Or perhaps it wasn't that at all. Maybe he was only waiting for the noise of the arrival to subside before he spoke again, for the sound of an arriving craft caught their attention at that moment. They watched as a huge, deep space trawler settled slowly to the ground a short distance away, its engines kicking up a cloud of debris. Once it had settled and the engines were killed, a gang plank was lowered and the cyborgs leading or carrying the injured began to move toward it.
"It is not enough to simply form a world for ourselves. We need purpose, a future. We want mates—offspring."
Amaryllis blinked several times, rapidly, as a new wave of shock washed over her. “Offspring?"
"Families."
Amaryllis felt her jaw go slack with stunned surprise. “But you ... I mean, if we're cyborgs, we can't ... couldn't ... uh ... wouldn't be able to reproduce,” she said a little weakly, trying to shove the implications to the back of her mind. The inner voice refused to be silenced, however.
Never, in her wildest imaginings would she have considered what the true purpose of this mission appeared to be—not the utter defeat of the hunters that had been dogging them for years, but the capture of—mates for the purpose of colonization.
Chapter Three
The ship the cyborg led Amaryllis into was a modified commercial freighter. Under the circumstances, one wouldn't expect luxury. It was as well she hadn't, for the ship looked more like some medieval dungeon than a passenger craft, even of the lowest order.
Amaryllis’ tension built as it slowly, but inevitably, sank in upon her that nothing short of a suicidal attempt would win her more than a few moments of freedom. Even the sliver of a chance vanished as the cyborg forced her up the gangway and into the freighter, towing her along one dimly lit, dank passageway after another until at last they reached a large cabin that had been converted into a sickbay. It was already beginning to fill with the injured and the medics attending them. After leading her to a gurney, the cyborg ordered her to undress and climb onto it.
As stunned as she was by everything else that had happened, Amaryllis felt still another jolt. “You'regoing to examine me?"
He eyed her speculatively. “You would prefer another?” he responded coolly.
"I'd prefer a medic,” Amaryllis said tartly.
"I have the programming needed."
There didn't seem much she could say to that. She didn't know why she didn't want him in particular to examine her. It shouldn't have mattered one way or another.
It did, though.
Despite the fact that it occurred to her that she was really far better off to have a cyborgnot completely programmed in medicine to examine her, she wasn't at all keen on having him touch her.
She reminded herself, again, that she had no choice in the matter. She was a trained soldier. She knew when the odds were stacked against her and resistance was futile. After a moment, she removed her uniform, climbed onto the gurney and lay back, staring up at the lights on the ceiling, her teeth gritted to prevent them from chattering with reaction, trying her level best to empty her mind of any thoughts at all.
"I am called Dante."
She didn't care what fucking name he'd been given. In fact, she didn't want to know anything that would make it any more difficult for her to remember what he was. She preferred to simply think of him as ‘the cyborg', a machine.
When she glanced at him, she saw that he was holding a scanner. Her heart slammed into her ribcage and she swallowed audibly. It looked pretty antiquated, but she had a bad feeling it was functional enough to give her away.
Her mind instantly began to flutter frantically in search of possibilities—and came upon one dead end after another. Short of leaping from the gurney and fighting her way to the door, fighting her way out of the ship and across a field swarming with cyborgs, there seemed no escape. She was a realist. Whatever advantage her cybernetic limbs gave her, it wasn't nearly enough to overcome those kind of odds.
"What name are you known by?"
"Amanda Rios.” Brain malfunction. The moment the words were out of her mouth Amaryllis wondered if the head injury—or pure fear—had taken her wits completely. She'd been designated Amaryllis VH600 from the time she'd joined the militia. What had prompted her to regress to the childhood name her family had given her? Watching her life flash before her eyes? No one—except backwards terra farmers—even used such names anymore. The population in the ‘civilized’ universe had reached such proportions that it only made sense to use the codes issued by the government.
It was too much to hope he wouldn't notice the slip.
He went still. “Rios?"
Amaryllis could've bitten her tongue off. Try though she might, however, she couldn't think of any way to retrieve the blunder that she thought would be the least bit believable. She should have simply given him her military designation.
That's what came of allowing oneself to become distracted with useless speculation. And itwas useless. There was no escape and no way to avoid detection. She could only hope he wouldn't be able to decipher the differences he found once he got the readouts from the scanner.
"It's a nickname,” she added lamely, amending, “Cpl. Amaryllis VH600."
His expression was unreadable, but she didn't think for a moment that he'd swallowed her story. Regardless, he seemed disinclined to pursue the matter. Instead, he activated the scanner.
Amaryllis swallowed audibly as he slowly moved it over her.
When he'd finished, he stood perfectly still, analyzing the readout, his face carefully expressionless. After several moments, he moved away from her. She tensed, uncertain of what to expect. Had he seen that her brain implant was merely a control device rather than a fully operational CPU? Had he detected the organs she had that no cyborg would have been given? That her skeletal structure was titanium clad calcium, rather than pure titanium?
Her mind supplied her with a half dozen attack and counterattack scenarios while she waited tensely to see what he would do next, resisting the temptation to simply take matters into her own hands and launch the first assault.
What were the odds that he hadn'
Was he still assimilating the differences and trying to decide what they meant?
She jumped when he returned once more with an extractor.
"I must remove your locators."
Amaryllis stared at him blankly for several moments, trying to shift gears. “Locators?” she echoed.
"There are two. One here,” he said, touching her hip and sending a strange bolt of electricity through her. “The other is at the base of your skull."
The remark was enough to jolt her back into real time. “Two?” she repeated, frowning while she slowly considered the possibilities. “One is a decoy?"
He stared at her a long moment and finally seemed to shrug. “Both are operational."
"I don't understand. I knew about one. Why would they imbed two different locators?"
He frowned as he placed a hand on her hip, drawing the flesh taut with his fingers as he aimed the laser he held in his other hand. Amaryllis gulped, bracing herself as the full ramifications of her deception assailed her. He wasn't going to use anything to deaden the area.
If she were cyborg, she would be able to shut down the nerve endings in that area and close herself off from the pain.
"They expect us to behave as humans."
"What?"
"The Company. Strange, don't you think, that they maintain that we are no more than machines, and yet they behave with the expectation that we will react as a human would. Finding one locator, we would look no further."
It was a good point, but one Amaryllis wasn't terribly interested in at the moment.
Some of the tension left her as he moved away from her again. When he returned, he smoothed a gel substance over the area he would incise. The gel was cold. Amaryllis felt her nipples puckering in reaction.
The movement caught his gaze.
There was nothing remotely detached, or mechanical, in his eyes. His reaction was surprising, to say the least.
Her own reaction to the look in his eyes was almost as stunning. Heat surged through her. Her mouth went dry. She was still trying to gather enough moisture to swallow when he seemed to become aware of his surroundings once more. Briefly, their gazes met. Something flickered in his eyes and then vanished.
He'd opened her hip with the laser before she recovered enough to tense against the expectation of pain. There was no pain, however, and she realized he'd deadened the area after all.
Her heart thudded painfully in her chest as that sank in.
He proceeded to remove the locator and destroy it, however, as if nothing was amiss. When he'd closed the wound, he directed her to turn over. She did so reluctantly, wondering if he would strike while her back was turned.
His hand felt warm as it skated over her back, brushing her hair from her neck. She tensed, trying to ignore the tingles of warmth that spread through her. Again, he rubbed the cold gel into her skin. The smell of burning flesh stung at her nostrils as he made the incision and extracted the second locator. She made an abortive attempt to rise when she realized he'd closed the wound. He placed a hand on her back, silently commanding her to remain as she was. Reluctantly, she desisted.
Discomfort assailed her as he ministered to her wounds. It was not the discomfort of pain, however. She would almost have welcomed that as something to focus on at this point, for, lying face down on the gurney, her other senses sharpened and she was more acutely conscious of the strength and warmth of his hands, and the surprising gentleness of his touch even than before. Desperate to close her mind to the effect he was having on her senses, Amaryllis squeezed her eyes shut, only to discover that that made things even worse. Something tightened and fluttered in her belly, spreading warmth throughout her body. Her heart rate kicked up a few notches so that it was a struggle to try to regulate her breathing to anything even approaching normal.
He had to have noticed her distress.
She saw, once he'd finished and told her to sit up, that he was no more unfazed than she was. As unfamiliar as she was with the look of desire in a man's eyes, as certain as she was that cyborgs would know nothing about human passion, what she saw when she finally nerved herself to meet his gaze was as unmistakable as her own erratic heartbeat and instantly recognizable because it reflected her own needs.
With an effort, she redirected her thoughts as he finished his examination, trying to decide whether he'd realized she was human and, if so, what the possible repercussions might be.
It was difficult, to say the least, with him standing so close, with the touch of his hands on her thighs as he examined the wounds there.
"Why do they call you Rios?"
Amaryllis gaped at him, mentally kicking herself. Shit! Why hadn't she considered when she manufactured the lie that she might have to explain it?
She managed a credible shrug of unconcern. “My family is—uh—were terra farmers on a world that used their family names since it was too under populated to create a problem. Or, at least, that's the memories I was given, according to what that other cyborg said. But I guess it's because Rios is—or was—such a commonplace name and I am—pretty average."
His dark gaze swept over her in a leisurely appraisal that seemed to miss nothing. She thought she'd become immune to self-consciousness about her nudity, but blood was pounding in her cheeks by the time he met her gaze once more. “They lied."
She blinked. “What?"
"You are small, not average, in stature and build."
The comment angered her. The cyborgs were superior specimens, so she supposed she could see why he might consider her less than perfect, but she figured she was fairly average for a human—alright a little less than that, but then she'd had medical problems that had probably contributed to stunted growth.
"Your features are exotic, not common—your body far better than average. You are a beautiful, desirable woman and there is nothing at all common about that, even in this age of genetic manipulation in the search for perfection."
Amaryllis wouldn't have thought it possible to blush any harder, but she did. She stared at him speechlessly. She decided, finally, that it was just as well. The more she said, the deeper the hole she seemed to dig for herself.
She couldn't think straight, and she no longer had the comfort of thinking it was purely shock or even fear.
He'd analyzed her and expressed an opinion, she realized finally. Cyborgs weren't supposed to have them. She could understand the comment about her not being average. As hard as she tried to delude herself into thinking of herself as average or typical, she never had been and she had the emotional scars to prove it from the taunts and teasing she'd received from the other children as she was growing up. She liked to think she appeared, on the outside at least, fairly average now—because being average was much, much better than standing out from the crowd if standing out meant being a target for revulsion, criticism, or amusement.
It would never have occurred to her to consider herself more than passable, however, and she couldn't help but wonder what Dante saw that made him perceive her as ‘beautiful'.
And how would a machine perceive such a thing anyway?
Trying to wade through her confusion made her head ache even worse than it had been.
"You should locate the pain centers and switch them off until the nanos have mended the organic cells."
The comment caught Amaryllis by surprise. She was within a hair's breadth of snapping that she would if she had that ability when she thought better of it. Instead, she merely slipped from the table and bent to gather her uniform up as he stepped back, giving her the signal that he was through with her.
He clasped a hand over hers, stilling her movements. “You are hunter no more and you will not wear that uniform any longer. Come. While you shower, I will find clothing to fit you."
Amaryllis was instantly torn at the mention of a shower and fresh clothing. However, she'd been in worse condition, on missions, and had to endure it for days. It wouldn't kill her to wait, and being around this particular cyborg might be the death of her. She needed to put as much distance between herself and the cyborgs as possible, not chum with them. “Actually,” she said when he'd pulled her torn uniform from her fingers and tossed it to the floor, “I'd as soon dress now."
He caught her arm just above the elbow and tugged, leading her past the other gurneys toward the door they'd entered. “You will not get the chance until tomorrow if you do not go now."
"Fine. Just give me my uniform back. I'll wait for the others."
"You are afraid?"
The question was asked without inflection. Amaryllis thought, perhaps, it was the complete lack of inflection that put her on guard. “Should I be?"
"No."
Amaryllis ground her teeth. She'd fallen right into that one. She cast around in her mind trying to think of an objection he might heed. He'd bandaged a couple of her more serious wounds, but it seemed doubtful the ship was equipped with anything but particle showers—she hadn't seen a real, honest to god, wonderfully primitive, water shower since she'd left the colony—which wouldn't present a problem.
It wouldn't really have been a problem even if he was talking about a water shower. She had scratches and slightly deeper scratches, only a few cuts had even warranted sealing. She might have suspected his motives for bandaging her at all except that the only thing that came to mind as a possibility was a desire to keep her longer and she couldn't imagine why he would want to.
"Maybe you're the one who should be wary,” she said finally, when they'd reached the corridor once more.
He glanced down at her questioningly.
"Iam a hunter."
"I don't doubt your skills, but you are without weapons."
"I don't need them."
He sent her a look of amusement. “Against a male cyborg, who is fully aware of your training?"
He had a point. Even her cybernetics didn't make her stronger than a male and he had the advantage of a good deal of reach and weight besides. The only way a female hunter could bring down a male cyborg toe to toe was to outwit them, or catch them off guard. She doubted, under the circumstances, that she could manage either.
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