by Regine Abel
I harrumphed and gave him the ‘don’t be stupid’ look. My ass wasn’t going anywhere in the dark. I didn’t even know where the fuck we were at this point. He had a map in his head that I didn’t have access to. He was my safest bet to get to Satos in one piece. And… I genuinely believed what he’d just said, and still trusted him, however irrational my mind said this was.
“There isn’t much to say about me, to be honest,” I said, feeling self-conscious for some odd reason. “I’m the younger of two. My parents were both tech heads, but my mother left us when my brother Damian and I were still young. Damian always wanted to join the military, and I wanted to do whatever he did. I was his little shadow.”
“So, you are military trained,” he said between two bites. “I didn’t know if you were officially part of the military or a member of some paramilitary militia.”
“Both,” I said with a shrug. “Originally, I was only part of the army. But Damian quickly climbed the ranks and joined a special unit that was essentially tasked with espionage on behalf of the Emperor. That’s when he started discovering the lengths Shui went to in order to eliminate his detractors. Smear campaigns weren’t enough, he also made sure to sabotage the Prime Ministers, going so far as to plant false evidence against them to incriminate them in corruption.”
“I had heard of that. At the time, we believed it was merely the desperate defense of the guilty caught red-handed,” Jarog said before removing an entire leg off the animal to eat directly from the bone.
“How can you be so lean and eat this much?” I asked, bewildered.
“This much?” he said, after swallowing a mouthful. He gestured at the animal still roasting on the spit. “I will probably polish all of this off tonight. I told you, it takes a lot of juice to fuel this body. But you were telling me about your brother.”
I snorted and shook my head, amused.
“Damian revealed to me what had been going on and described some of the tasks he’d been asked to perform,” I continued. “Spying, he was okay with. Planting false evidence to ruin someone’s life, not so much… He tried to resign, but they demanded he completed his tour of duty first. However, it was out of the question for him to ruin these people’s lives.”
“He deserted?” Jarog asked.
“He considered it, but that would have put him on the wanted list and made all of our lives a living hell,” I said, shaking my head. “Instead, he complied with his orders, but my uncle, my father, and I found ways to inconspicuously warn the targets so they wouldn’t get framed.”
“And thus, you were labeled as rebels,” Jarog concluded.
“Oh no, we were labeled rebels because we did start a rebel movement across regions to attempt to depose Emperor Shui,” I countered. “The increasing corruption on Kirs prompted us to resist, but what truly made our movement grow exponentially was Shui’s determination to annex the planet Bionus to Kirs. My parents are originally from Bionus. They came to Kirs because it is a tech head’s ultimate haven.”
“Why didn’t you all just go back to Bionus when you realized how the Emperor had changed?” Jarog asked.
“It was our intention, as soon as we’d both finished our tours of duty,” I explained. “My father and my uncle were going to help build the defenses of Bionus. Damian and I were to help train more soldiers and recruit new ones to be ready to face off against the Emperor, if it came to that. Damian had been talking with some Cyborgs in the hope of bringing them over to our side.”
“And then, you all got rounded up…” Jarog said.
“I was on leave and had just escorted my father to the spaceport so that he could go back to Bionus ahead of us,” I explained, my stomach knotting at the memory. “His ship took off, and I only got arrested while leaving the spaceport. I want to believe he made it home safely. But my brother and my uncle were also arrested. I saw Damian when I was getting branded,” I added, absent-mindedly caressing the R-shaped scar on my face. “I might have seen him on the transport ship to the prison colony of Tyurma, but I can’t be certain. Who knows if they made it off? I have to hang on to the belief that they did.”
My voice broke a little as I pronounced those last words. I hated to display weakness, but we were a tight-knit family. Losing any of them would devastate me.
Jarog opened his mouth to comment, but a distant rumbling announcing the storm he had alluded to interrupted him. He looked up, his enhanced vision probably giving him far more information than what mine could perceive.
“Let’s get inside before it pours,” he said, picking up the display screen of the snitch and the spit on which the remaining meat was still impaled.
A drop of rain hit my forehead just as I was stepping inside the cave. Within minutes, it sounded like a deluge outside. To my surprise, Jarog didn’t finish all the meat after all, but cut the leftovers from the bone and squeezed them neatly into one of the cool food boxes in the backpack. He looked approvingly at the ground that I had previously cleaned to the best of my abilities, lying down on his back next to where I was sitting with my legs crossed beneath me.
Although I didn’t believe he’d done so to give me an eyeful, I couldn’t help but let my gaze roam over his body. Jarog was a fine male specimen. The intense, regular training Cyborgs underwent to maintain their muscle mass didn’t make him bulky, but strong, lean, and well-defined. Even through his dark-grey uniform, I could see the curves of his chiseled muscles. I couldn’t help my treacherous mind from wondering what he looked like without clothes on.
Although his face wasn’t the drop-dead gorgeous type—or even classically handsome for that matter—he was undeniably attractive with his square jaw, plush lips on a wide mouth, strong, Roman nose, and mesmerizing steely-gray eyes. His strong brow gave him a somewhat permanently stern expression—if not a scowl—that sat well with his controlled personality.
“What are your plans, Tamryn? Once you reach Satos, that is?” Jarog asked.
His voice sounded even deeper now that he was lying down with his hands behind his head, and his eyes staring at the low ceiling of the cave.
“Try to contact my brother and uncle to see if they made it, and my father to make sure he’s safe at home,” I said without hesitation. “Then figure out a way to get back to wherever they are.”
He turned his head sideways to look at me, an unreadable expression on his face. Although he didn’t speak the words, I knew what thoughts were crossing his mind—the ones I didn’t want to contemplate.
“What about you? What are your plans when we get there?” I asked, trying to sound relaxed.
The troubled expression that flitted over his face took me aback.
“Truth be told, I do not know anymore,” he said in a tired voice.
Chapter 5
Jarog
I sighed, feeling almost as lost as that tragic day when my parents died. Back then, I still had the army to call home. Now, I didn’t even have that. No army, no Cyborg Military Elite, no pod brothers, no purpose…
“I was to rendezvous with my pod brothers on Gorkon,” I replied.
“Pod brothers?” Tamryn asked.
“Cyborgs are divided into units of four or five members, which we call pods,” I explained. “We are connected through a closed neural network that allows us to communicate, almost like telepathy. As every member of the pod is able to access each other’s deepest thoughts, memories, and emotions, we only form it with Cyborgs we completely trust. Hence, they are pod brothers.”
“That makes sense,” Tamryn said with a nod. “But you’re reconsidering rendezvousing with them now?”
“I don’t know that there is anyone left to rendezvous with,” I said, my chest constricting with pain. “I felt three of my brothers die during the explosion of the transport ship. I spoke to Caylan, the only other survivor of my pod as we were flying away from the debris. But now, I believe something terrible has happened to him.”
“Oh no! What makes you say that?” Tamryn asked, her voice
filled with commiseration and horror. “He no longer responds when you try to speak to him?”
“He’s much too far for us to be able to communicate right now,” I said, shaking my head. “We would need to at least be on the same planet to do so, or for him to be in orbit. But each of my brothers has a ‘presence’ in our neural net. It’s just inactive when they are out of range. However, when one of them dies, that presence becomes an absence or a void that feels like a part of me has been ripped out.”
“And you’re feeling that void where your last brother used to be?” she asked, gently.
“Not exactly. Caylan isn’t dead. His presence is there but not muted by distance. It feels distorted,” I said, my throat tightening. “The neural network recognizes him as being part of our pod but can no longer properly interface with him. The only thing that I can think of that could explain this is if he suffered massive cerebral damage. I fear that he’s lying somewhere, slowly dying, and I’m not there to save him. And I fear even more that he’s all alone, and that in a few hours, or maybe a few days, there will be no one left but me in our neural network. If that’s the case, there will be no point for me to go to Gorkon.”
“Wouldn’t other Cyborgs also go there?” Tamryn asked. “If the worst came to pass, couldn’t you join another pod?”
I snorted and shook my head. “It’s not that simple. Like I said, you do not form a pod with someone unless you implicitly trust them. Right now, trust among Cyborgs is in very short supply. I would not readily give access to my most intimate thoughts to a stranger, and I wouldn’t expect them to be too keen on giving me that power over them either. But there’s no point borrowing trouble. We should rest and get an early start in the morning.”
From the look on her face, she wanted to pursue the topic. To my relief, she respected my wish to let it rest for now and cast a glance at the entrance to our little cave.
“I wonder what time it is,” Tamryn said pensively. “I’m feeling quite tired, but the sun didn’t go down all that long ago.”
“It is only a little after 1900 hours, local time. But for us, on Kirs’ time, it is past 0100 hours,” I replied.
“Oh wow! No wonder!” Tamryn said, looking at the hard ground with an unimpressed expression. “But shouldn’t one of us stand watch?”
I shook my head. “I have configured the snitch to patrol the perimeter. If anything bigger than that animal we ate tonight lurks nearby, it will warn us. Should anything smaller than that come closer than twenty meters from here, it will wake me. I have highly sensitive hearing.”
Tamryn pursed her lips, eyeing me with a hard-to-define expression before giving me a stiff nod. She unfolded her legs, wincing in the process, then reached for the light stone that illuminated the room, no doubt to turn it off.
“You can lie on top of me, if you wish,” I said, stunned to hear the words come out of my mouth.
Tamryn stiffened, her hand freezing over the stone as she stared at me in disbelief.
“Excuse me?” she asked, outrage ringing loud and clear in her voice.
I snorted. “Relax. I’m not hitting on you. The ground is hard. You will wake up aching everywhere in the morning,” I explained. “Sleeping on top of me would be more comfortable for you.”
She gave me the ‘do you think I’m stupid?’ look. Although I understood her dubious stance, it irritated me.
“If I wanted to fuck, I would just ask you,” I said with a sliver of annoyance. “I say what I mean and mean what I say. You winced when you moved from your sitting position, so I offered. But if you prefer the ground, you’re welcomed to it. Good night.”
I closed my eyes and tried to relax, listening to the rain battering the ground outside. Tamryn shifted next to me. By the sound and the dimming luminosity, she’d recovered the light stone and returned to her sitting position. Her stare on me felt like a living entity, and I could almost hear the thoughts racing through her mind. That she hadn’t turned off the light yet and laid down next to me clearly expressed that she wanted to take me up on my offer. I couldn’t decide if pride after giving me attitude, genuine embarrassment at lying on top of a stranger, or a mix of both fueled her hesitation.
“I would crush you,” she said at last.
“You were lying unconscious on top of me for the two hours our escape pod took to get here,” I said without opening my eyes. “I know exactly what you weigh, which is nothing. It would take ten of you to crush me. Now, make up your mind, and let me sleep.”
She muttered something under her breath, rummaged for another second, then climbed on top of me. My offer had genuinely been innocent and merely to give her a bit of comfort. But the moment Tamryn lay down on me, a timid flame sparked in the pit of my stomach. The heat of her body on top of mine only enhanced the feel of the cold stones behind my back and the cooling evening air. Her long black hair fanned over my chest in a gentle caress as she rested her head on top of my heart. Her body perfectly aligned with mine, and I fought the urge to wrap an arm around her.
“Yeah, you’re more comfy than the ground,” she mumbled under her breath. “Sweet dreams.”
I snorted. “And you as well,” I whispered, indulging in the feel of her as I let sleep claim me.
It came surprisingly quickly. And I couldn’t have been more grateful for it. Granted, this crazy day had taxed me. However, beyond the incredibly distracting feel of this fascinating woman lying on top of me, a million painful thoughts kept racing through my mind.
Twice the snitch woke me, having detected movement near our retreat. In both cases, the camera feed only showed wild creatures roaming about their business. I had set the alarm to the lowest sound so that it wouldn’t unnecessarily awaken Tamryn. She needed the rest far more than I did, if only to recover from her injuries, but also because she didn’t benefit from the regeneration power of a Cyborg.
I slept until four in the morning, local time—an unusually long rest for me. Tamryn had stirred a few times before going right back to sleep. She had impressed me on the ship how she’d navigated around the debris, and again how she’d handled my leaving her. Most people in her situation—male and female alike—would have fallen apart. Tamryn had kept her head and started working on the escape pod. I didn’t know how she had intended to operate it, but it had been a clever plan. Seeing how she seized the distraction I provided to defeat her opponent had been even more impressive.
But what really sealed the deal had been the resilience she displayed during our long and painful ride here. Tamryn had been in pain. I could only imagine how intense it had been for her considering the great deal of discomfort I’d been experiencing myself, despite my significantly reduced sensitivity to pain. I almost stopped for a break on a few occasions. However, her determination to push through had only increased my admiration for her exponentially. It also allowed us to make a big dent in the long journey to Satos. It would take another full day and a half to reach our destination. Hopefully, we would find another semi-decent spot like this one for the night.
That said, I couldn’t deny that our conversation had shaken me far more than I’d ever want to admit. For a brief moment, I had genuinely feared she would want to part ways after my revelation. It had been reckless of me to confess. At the same time, I didn’t lie and especially didn’t want to start doing so with her. My instant trust in her was irrational, and even more so my desire to earn her respect. My confession had obviously damaged that. But however long or short our partnership would last, it would be rooted in honesty.
I sighed and wrapped a protective arm around her. I really loved the feel of her lying trustingly on top of me while she slept. I hadn’t been intimate with a female since my transformation six years ago. For the first time since, I was questioning all the choices I had made. I still didn’t regret becoming a Cyborg, but if I could turn back the clock, many things would have gone down differently. But now, I essentially had a clean slate. No allegiance or duty to anyone, a vast universe where I could sta
rt over. What did I want to do with this relative new ‘freedom’ I now possessed?
Tamryn shifted on top of me, making me realize I had subconsciously tightened my embrace around her.
Maybe I can help her? Until I figure out what’s next for me, I could help get her home…
The amount of comfort I derived from that thought took me aback. If I psychoanalyzed myself, I’d recognize my need to belong, to have a purpose, and to be needed. But why tie myself to her? Sure, she’d earned my respect and admiration, but Tamryn was clearly dedicated to this rebellion business. Now that I’d been released from my oath, did I really want to get dragged back into this political bullshit?
Don’t you want to make amends for all the wrong you did in his name?
That made me flinch inwardly. Did I owe the people of Kirs for following the orders of my ruler? I lowered my gaze to the female resting peacefully on top of me. If she asked for my assistance, I would grant it. But all these questions were pointless right now. Until we reached Satos and had a better sense of what Tamryn’s contacts could do for us—assuming they didn’t try to collect the bounties instead—everything else would be pure speculation.
Despite my desire to get an early start, I wanted to let Tamryn benefit from every minute of rest. I intended to push us hard today, and hopefully find some fresh water along the way. The sun would rise in about an hour. I would wake her then. In the meantime, I consulted again the maps of Satos stored in my neural processor to reevaluate the route I had planned.
I also took the risk of connecting to the Mainframe for any secret message Caylan might have left for me there. It was beyond a long shot, but worth checking. There was a remote possibility that, while his connection to our closed network might have been damaged, the one to the Mainframe hadn’t been. Wishful thinking of course… Sure enough, I found nothing in all the places where he might have planted an image or keyword that would have given me the necessary hint as to his situation.