Cyborg Nation

by Kaitlyn O’Connor

  Combing her hair, she left it loose to dry. She didn’t especially want to leave the cabin, particularly after what had happened between her and Gideon, but she was starving and besides that Gabriel had made it clear that he would come and get her if she didn’t present herself.

  They were talking, she discovered when she reached the cabin door, and obviously she was the subject under discussion … or at least part of the discussion. She froze, listening intently with her ear to the panel.

  “ … I am almost tempted to forget she is a human,” Gideon murmured thoughtfully.

  “How could you forget that when she is afraid of her shadow?”

  “She has reason enough to be frightened. I would think her witless if she were not,” Gabriel responded coolly. “And I would have no interest in her if she were, even though she is beautiful.”

  Bronte felt her face heat. He thought she was beautiful?

  My god, she thought, firmly tamping the pleasure the comment had given her. Whatever women he was comparing her to must be a pathetic bunch! She wasn’t even close to beautiful! Pretty might have been stretching it, though she supposed she had had enough appreciative glances from men to support the possibility that men, at least, seemed to find her passably attractive—though women had certainly never viewed her with any envy at all that she could discern.

  She’d always figured the masculine appreciation was because of her hair, though. It was dark, very dark, but also definitely red and there seemed to be something about red hair, even as dark as hers, that fascinated men.

  It was hardly surprising that cyborgs, designed and programmed predominately by men, and also utilizing biological materials donated by men, would be a lot like the human males who’d created them.

  “Your desire to find a mate has fried your brain receptors. Rose is far more beautiful, and she is cyborg.”

  One of the others uttered a laugh that lacked humor. “Tell that to someone who has not seen the way you look at Bronte! In any case, Rose has already chosen three. She will not take you as her fourth. The women are far more interested in the Hunters than those like us. We are too ‘cold and emotionless’ for their tastes … when we are not being ‘uncontrolled barbarians’ because we are more used to killing than trying to figure out how to woo a female. She bit me,” he added after a moment, cluing her in to the fact that it was Gideon speaking.

  “What did you do to provoke it?” Gabriel growled, his voice almost menacing.

  “Nothing!” Gideon snarled back at him. “I was only … curious. She did not seem to be either afraid or repulsed by me when I slept beside her.”

  “What did you do when she bit you for doing something I know damned well you had no business doing?”

  That voice was the other male, the one whose name she still didn’t know, and he sounded almost as angry as Gabriel had.

  “I taught her not to bite me! How are ‘brutes’ like us to learn how to woo a female when we can not get within a hundred yards of a female of any description?”

  She heard a noise that sounded like one, or more, getting abruptly to their feet. She was so intent on listening to hear what would happen next that she accidentally placed her hand on the door control, depressed the button, and stumbled through the doorway since she was leaning against door panel as it flew open.

  All three cyborgs were on their feet. At the sound of her scrambling to catch her balance, all three whirled to stare at her. She stared back at them in wide eyed dismay, feeling guilty color creep up her neck and into her cheeks, wondering if they would realize she’d nearly fallen out the door because she’d been leaning against it eavesdropping.

  The three men exchanged looks that promised to continue the discussion later and returned to their seats. Bronte really wanted to sink into the floor when they turned to look her over, Gideon as if he was looking for signs of damage … or maybe just anger about what he’d done to her, and the other two as if they were wondering what he’d done to her.

  She sure as hell wasn’t going to enlighten them! And she was going to bite Gideon a lot harder if he told them!

  None of them looked the least bit disconcerted or uncomfortable. She couldn’t decide whether it was because it hadn’t occurred to them that she’d been listening to their discussion or if it was because they didn’t care whether she’d heard it or not.

  It wasn’t as if they’d made any attempt to talk quietly.

  On the other hand, she was embarrassed even if they weren’t. She was also burning to know what they’d meant. She’d heard them clearly enough. She just didn’t understand the implications … beyond the fact that all three of them had more interest in her as female than she’d thought they did.

  That was an unnerving thought, particularly when she had no idea how long she was going to be trapped in space with them before they reached their destination. It was certain to be a long time, but it was bound to seem even longer if she was going to have to be trying to fend them off.

  She perched uneasily at the table where they were finishing their meals, jumping nervously at the sudden scraping sound as Gabriel slid a plate in front of her. She stared down at her plate. It looked like the typical pre-processed food one would find on any outbound vessel—not terribly appetizing. She realized all three men were staring at her, however, and picked up her eating utensil.

  As if they had only been waiting to see if she would eat, they returned their attention to their own food. She was relieved and at the same time unnerved by speculation as to what they would’ve done if she’d turned her nose up at it.

  Uncomfortable with the tense silence, she searched her mind a little frantically for something to say. The food seemed to want to stick in her throat. She swallowed convulsively several times and managed to dislodge it. Gideon slid a glass toward her. She flicked a glance at him, murmured her thanks, and drank a sip of the water sloshing over the top.

  She miscalculated the volume her mouth could hold and rivulets of water streamed out of each side of her mouth. Her depth perception wasn’t worth a damn since her sight had gone haywire on her. Or maybe it was just that her hand-eye coordination had never been quite what it should have been?

  Or maybe she was just nervous as hell?

  Mopping the water off with the back of her hand, she brushed at the front of the suit she was wearing. The gesture gave her something to say although it was hardly the sparkling conversational gambit she’d been looking for. “Thank you for the change of clothes,” she said, throwing a quick glance and a polite smile in Gabriel’s direction.

  “It does not fit you,” he responded.

  She saw when she glanced at him that he was studying the rolled sleeves—she hoped that was what he was staring at, at any rate. He could have been staring at her breasts. He’d certainly examined them thoroughly when he’d walked in on her in the bath. “It’s better than being na....” Breaking off the moment she realized her conversation had followed her thoughts, Bronte cleared her throat. “Than nothing.” She blushed the moment she realized how rude that sounded. “No change of clothes,” she added uncomfortably.

  “We had not anticipated our target would be a woman.”

  Bronte glanced up and found herself staring into penetrating green eyes. Her mind leapt from his comment to the fact that the vessel had only one sleeping cabin and that had only one bed … a large one, true, but still, just one. “But … there’s only one bed!”

  Inwardly, she cringed. She had almost managed to forget her tendency to say whatever crossed her mind, mostly because she had gotten so wrapped up in her medical practice that she rarely engaged in ‘social’ conversations anymore.

  And her patients, those old enough to talk, were just as bad about saying whatever popped into their minds as she was.

  “Two are on duty while the third sleeps. Speed was more important than comfort.”

  “In any case, we are cyborgs,” Gabriel said coldly. “We were sold to the military as soldiers … and therefore unwort
hy of even the comfort a common human soldier might expect. We are still soldiers, though now in the service of the Cyborg Nation.”

  Bronte glanced automatically at Gideon when he spoke. She wouldn’t have if she’d taken a moment to consider it, but she tended to react before she thought. The moment she looked at him, her gaze dropped to his moving lips and steamy images of what he’d done to her flooded her mind. She knew when she met his gaze that he’d correctly interpreted the train of her thoughts, that he was thinking about it, too.

  It would have made her extremely uncomfortable except that Gabriel’s comments snagged her attention, diverting her completely. It seemed obvious from the way he spoke even if not for the comments themselves that if they had learned no other human emotions, they had learned hate, resentment, brutality. Comparatively speaking, they had been downright gentle with her considering their programming.

  Was that only because their orders were contrary to their ‘natural’ behavior? Or were they still learning, evolving? She had overheard Gideon mention ‘hunters’ before, indicating that they behaved more like ‘humans’. She was on the point of asking him about the hunters when it, fortunately, dawned on her that she’d been eavesdropping at the time. She couldn’t ask without giving herself away.

  She was still tempted.

  Instead, she returned her attention to her food, trying to eat enough to avoid censure although it was nearly cold by now and even less appealing than it had been to begin with. “If you hate humans so much, why did you take me?” she mumbled to no one in particular.

  “Unlike humans, Cyborgs are incapable of hate … or any emotion for that matter.”

  She glanced up at Gabriel when he spoke, staring at him for a long moment. “You are very good at imitating then,” she said quietly. “There is just the right note of contempt and venom in your voice each time you say ‘human’ to make me feel as if you hate them and everything about them.”

  His black, nearly straight brows drew together over the bridge of his nose, his finely etched lips compressing into a thin line. “We did not need social graces to kill. You will have to try to overlook our lack of skills in civilized conversation … or behavior. You need not concern yourself in any case. We are under orders to bring you back unharmed.”

  Nothing he had said had eased her fears at all, in fact, quite the opposite because she was absolutely convinced that they had attained self-awareness and with it the ability to feel the full range of emotions … without having been given the opportunity to experience the gentler emotions that kept the baser ones in balance. They had never known love at all. They’d emerged full grown and infinitely dangerous from the sterile environment of a laboratory and been sent out to kill and maim and destroy. That was all they had experienced, all they had had to learn from, and that was why they were very familiar with hate and anger. If all of the cyborgs that had managed to evade attempts to destroy them were as these were, and she saw no reason to doubt that they were since the soldiers were certainly better equipped to defend themselves from their creators, then she had a lot to fear. Strong emotions had a tendency to outweigh logic so she didn’t feel that the fact that they seemed to believe they needed her was going to be the protection they seemed to think it was … or at least wanted her to believe it was.

  Empathy smote her. It was awful to think that they had come into awareness under such circumstances, that they had not known anything ‘good’ at all, did not even have happy childhood memories to sustain them. As difficult as she had thought her own childhood was, she had had some affection. She had had friends. She had had fun. There were good memories to draw upon as well as bad ones.

  Depression settled over her, as well, because she realized her life was never going to get any better than this. From this point onward, she had nothing to look forward to with hope. The vague, never completely abandoned dream that she would one day meet a man she could love, or at least respect and like a great deal, and have a family of her own was never going to materialize. Even the barely acknowledged hope that the men who’d taken her might form at least a friendly bond with her vanished like smoke. She looked away from him, stirring the remains of her meal on her plate. “To live among others just like you three … who also don’t hate humans? That is certainly something for me to look forward to! It is such a great relief to know that as long as I’m considered useful I get to live.”

  She got up and moved to the work area to clean the remains of her food into the incinerator unit and clean her plate and utensil. It was something to do, at least, to occupy her hands and mind. Hearing the dull clank of the others’ plates and the stirring of movement, she wasn’t startled when she felt a presence beside her. She turned to discover it was the one with green eyes and he was holding a stack of plates. She reached to take them from him.

  “It is my turn to clean up.”

  She didn’t look at him. “I might as well have a turn, too. God knows I don’t want to be thought useless!”

  “You are a doctor and much needed. Your place in our society is assured, as are your comfort and well being.”

  They could tell her that forever and it wasn’t going to make her feel any less threatened! They were cyborgs, for fuck’s sake! They already had an unfair advantage! Even supposing these mythical children that needed her care appeared—and she couldn’t figure out how they thought that was going to happen in this little community they were working so hard to build—it wasn’t as if she could guard either her knowledge or her experience from them. They would learn—a lot faster than she had—and then they wouldn’t need her!

  She wasn’t really surprised to discover when she looked up at him that tears blurred her vision. She was deep down scared and depressed besides. “Oh!” she snapped sarcastically. “Well now I feel all better!”

  As she looked at him angrily, the tears overflowed and ran down her cheeks.

  A frown drew his dark brows together as his gaze followed the path. When he met her gaze again, his face had darkened and grown taut with fury. She had just enough time to feel faint when he whirled abruptly on his heel and stalked across the main cabin. Grabbing Gabriel by the shoulder, he snatched him around to meet the fist he slung at him.

  Bronte’s jaw dropped as the loud, meaty sound hit her ears like an explosion. Gabriel flew backwards, skidding across the table they’d been eating at moments before and sending the glasses filled with water flying in every direction.

  “Jerico!” Gideon bellowed, launching himself from the pilot’s seat and barreling toward the two men just as Jerico launched himself on top of the fallen man … or tried to … with his hands extended toward Gabriel’s throat. Quicker than thought, Gabriel brought his knees to his chest, caught Jerico with his feet and catapulted him across the small room. He slammed into the cabinets only inches from Bronte. Uttering a squeak of fright, Bronte dropped the dish she’d been holding and whirled to run.

  Leaving complete mayhem behind her, she dashed into the rear cabin and looked around frantically for a place to hide. She’d already dashed toward the bathroom when she skidded to a halt at the realization that it was very likely the first place they would look for her. Besides, it didn’t have a lock.

  She whirled, whipping her head from side to side in a frantic search for possibilities, dimly aware that the sounds of a fight were escalating not diminishing, as if all three men were now in the midst of battle. The space under the bunk was small, but she thought she could get under it. The problem was, under the bed would probably be their second guess if it wasn’t the first.

  Racing to the clothing locker, she popped the door open, gauged the size of the shelves and decided she could just squeeze into the bottom area. Grabbing the clothing from it, she had already tossed them over her shoulder before it dawned on her the scattered clothes would be a dead giveaway. Snatching them up again, she looked around a little wildly and finally threw them under the bunk. She scraped the hide off of her arms and shins climbing into the cubby hole at
the bottom of the clothing locker, and it was a miserably tight fit besides, but she managed to get in to it.

  Closing the door behind her was even harder. Persistence paid off, though. Cramped as she was, she had no difficulty retaining body heat. Despite the shock and fright that had her shivering, she began to grow warm fairly quickly. She couldn’t hear the fracas from inside the locker—not nearly as well anyway—but she counted that as a good thing, covering her ears with her hands for good measure. The moment she did that, it completely drowned out everything except her heart beat, which was pounding like tribal war drums.

  She was too scared at first to even consider what had happened with anything approaching cognitive thought. She couldn’t get the violent images out of her mind, though. Over and over, like a damaged vid that kept hitting a bad spot and replaying everything before, her mind vividly recreated Jerico’s fist slamming into Gabriel’s face, Gabriel flying backwards across the dining table, Jerico flying backwards across the room and the expression on Gideon’s face that promised even more fist slinging. Closing her eyes only seemed to make it worse, though how that could be the case when she was trapped in the dark already she couldn’t imagine.

  She’d thought for certain she’d enraged Jerico by being so snippy and sarcastic. Well, she supposed she had. She shuddered. She wasn’t sure if it was the violence itself or the horror she felt that men that big were strong enough to sling each other around that had her shaking like a leaf. Both, she decided.

  It wasn’t as if she had never seen violence. She’d seen the end results of it many times when she’d interned. She’d seen a lot of actual violence, but as a spectator staring at news clips or entertainment vids, not real life right on top of her violence.

  The door of the locker opened abruptly. Bronte squeezed her eyes more tightly shut. After a moment though, when the door didn’t close again, she opened one eye a crack to see what was going on.