by Meg LaTorre
“I did this.” Those damn tears came again. “It’s my fault her foot malfunctioned and she isn’t waking up.”
“It was an accident,” Rora said, and it sounded like she believed it. “You’ve been fixing implants for weeks, and so many people are better for it. I’ve…” Her gaze slid down to her useless hand. “I’ve been able to get by longer than I thought possible with my old hand.”
Rora looked up, and their gazes locked. “The first time I saw you, something inside me changed. I’ve made plenty of friends in my time at the circus, but I’ve always felt alone. I never realized it until the first time we spoke. You sparked something inside me. I felt something I hadn’t felt in years, perhaps longer…”
The Forgetting, Gwen realized. Rora couldn’t recall if she’d always felt this way.
Throat tightening, Gwen tried not to think about her own past that she struggled to remember.
“You made me feel cherished,” Rora said. “Like I had value beyond my performances. Like you wanted me for me.”
“I do,” Gwen said simply.
And damn her, she meant it.
Looking down, Gwen studied Rora’s useless implant. Could she make it through the final competition without it if Gwen uninstalled the unit entirely? Or if Gwen dared to tempt fate and intervene, would Rora fall into a deep sleep just like Marzanna, never to awaken again?
Fear swam through Gwen, making her dizzy. She’d nearly killed Marzanna. There was no way she could…
But before she could finish that thought, Rora’s eyes skirted around the room and locked on an object within the open wardrobe. Gwen hadn’t bothered to close the doors when she’d stashed her secret project earlier. And she wasn’t sure if she regretted that decision.
In the center of the wardrobe, easily viewable from Gwen’s bed, was the cyborg hand she had been tinkering with for weeks, creating nearly from scratch.
Standing, Rora went over to the hand, her eyes round. She picked it up and turned back to Gwen. “Is this… Is this what I think it is?”
Biting her lip, Gwen felt as though she might drown in fear—fear of what she might do to the woman she was falling for.
But she couldn’t find it in herself to lie to Rora. Not with those beautiful brown eyes full of hope. Not when a new hand could make the difference between Rora winning the third competition and being banished from the circus forever.
“I’ve been working on it since the first time I tinkered your hand,” Gwen admitted.
After joining the circus, she quickly learned from the ever-present watchmen the rule surrounding new implants—largely that performers never got new implants, refurbished or otherwise. They were expected to live out the thirteen years of their contract with a single implant.
Thanks to the Cyborg Prohibition Law forbidding the manufacture of implants, they were incredibly rare and disgustingly expensive. With pricey new implants out of the picture, that left only the Mistress and perhaps a tinkerer with the appropriate skill set to create refurbished implants—under the assumption that there were enough parts lying around.
Fortunately for Gwen and Rora, there were.
Unfortunately, Gwen’s cyborg tinkering skill set was juvenile at best.
Regardless, by creating a new implant for Rora, she would be breaking the circus’s rules of no new implants. But she deeply cared for the acrobat, and she’d do anything to help her. They could only hope no one noticed Rora’s old implant had been used as a dragon’s chew toy.
Rora’s mouth dropped. “That long?” She shook her head, turning her gaze from the polished implant to Gwen’s eyes. “I can’t believe you did this for me.”
“I want the best for you.” Gwen looked away. “I wanted to help.”
Slowly, Rora sat beside Gwen, placing the new hand on the bed. It was made from scavenged parts and in far better condition than the acrobat’s current hand.
Reluctantly, Gwen met Rora’s eyes.
“Today has sucked,” Rora said, rather bluntly. “You’ve had to do horrible things, and I’m sure you’re exhausted. But what happened with the implant extractions wasn’t your fault. The Mistress forced your hand. You were not responsible for those deaths. The blood of those cyborgs is not on your hands. Do you hear me?” As Gwen started to look away, Rora grabbed her chin. “You also faced a dragon, and you beat it. You saved my life in the process. Sure, bad things happened. But I believe Marzanna is going to get better. I believe in you.”
Overwhelming gratitude swelled in Gwen’s chest. Words utterly escaped her as tears rolled down her cheek. But she managed to grab Rora’s hand, nodding.
As the tears subsided, she took a deep breath. And then three more.
“I’ll install it if you want me to.” Fear tightened Gwen’s chest, but she pressed on. “I’m terrified of hurting you like I hurt Marzanna.”
“I trust you.” Rora gestured to her limp hand. “Besides, you can only go up from here, right?”
Sighing, Gwen moved back toward the wardrobe and rummaged among the things for her tool kit. “We’d better get started if we want to get this thing installed.”
“Right now?” Rora’s eyes grew wide.
Placing her tool kit on the floor and sitting down beside it, Gwen nodded. “I want plenty of time before the final competition to make sure it’s installed properly. I don’t want to risk another massive malfunction out in the wilderness or wherever. Because who knows what asinine idea will be concocted for the final competition.”
“You don’t know what the competition is?” Rora asked as Gwen gestured for her to lie on the ground.
Gwen disinfected her equipment. To her surprise, she found herself wishing Bastian was there. If only for his calm temperament and steady hands to assist her. It certainly wasn’t for comfort as she wondered if she was about to kill the woman she cared deeply for.
“No.” She passed a flask to Rora, who took a deep swig. She then placed a leather strap between her teeth. “Rumor has it we should find out tomorrow.”
Pausing, they looked at each other—Gwen with uncertainty and Rora with utter trust.
Rora nodded, the gesture seeming to say, “Just do it.”
With that, Gwen started uninstalling and reinstalling a new cyborg implant, praying the whole time she wasn’t about to send Rora to the Reaper’s door right beside Marzanna.
As they worked through the night in near silence, Rora’s grunts of discomfort muffled by the leather strap, Gwen wondered just what was in store for them tomorrow.
There was only one competition left before they saw the emperor.
Chapter 21
Pain tore Rora from sleep.
As she jolted upright, soft sheets fell from her chest, revealing a gleaming cyborg implant on her right arm.
Is this actually real?
For so long, she’d dreamed of getting a new implant—one that actually worked—and now that she had one, she was speechless, numb.
She should be happy. But instead, her mind was strangely blank.
Glancing around at a bedroom far larger and tidier than hers, Rora’s gaze settled on a tinkering table with tools. Belatedly, she realized she was in Gwen’s room. More specifically, she was in the tinkerer’s bed. Her cheeks heated as she spotted Gwen curled up on the floor with several throw pillows and a quilt blanket. Even in sleep, exhaustion marred her features, but it didn’t diminish the stubborn vibrancy that was Gwen.
Against all odds, Rora had successfully seduced Gwen, manipulating her to break circus rules and create a refurbished hand.
I should leave.
The thought zipped through her mind, unbidden.
Instead, her cyborg fingers curled around the sheets and pulled them to her face. Beyond the faint smell of oils and metals, typical of tinkerers, was Gwen’s aroma of vanilla and lilac. Scrunching the sheets, she pressed them to her nose as her gaze moved across the room to the woman sleeping on the floor.
The woman who’d risked everything for her time a
nd again.
First with the dragon and now with installing a new implant.
But if Rora was to perform for the emperor, she had to make it through the final competition—whatever it was. She couldn’t let herself get distracted by a pretty face, especially now that she had her new hand.
Slowly, she lowered the sheets from her face and swung her legs over the bed.
Pain zigzagged up her arm from the movement. Installing machinery into bone and sinew was never easy, particularly without anesthesia, but she had made it through. The pain would pass. It would be worth it.
Slowly, Rora slipped into her shoes and crossed the room.
When she came to where Gwen slept near the door, she hesitated.
I didn’t even have to sleep with her to get a new hand. She did this for me willingly and without strings.
Interestingly, disappointment swirled through Rora, and it felt like her feet were rooted to the ground.
Biting her lip, she glanced back and forth between Gwen and the door, and made her decision.
She headed for Gwen’s work station in the corner of her room and wrote a quick note using a spare quill and parchment. Placing the note beside where the tinkerer slept, Rora grabbed one of Gwen’s large sleeping shirts and pulled it over her head, covering her cyborg arm.
She’d need to figure out how to keep her new arm a secret from the show management team. First, she’d talk to the performers who’d seen the dragon bite her implant and somehow convince them not to say anything.
For now, she’d need to keep it covered.
As Rora stepped over Gwen and reached for the door handle, she paused, looking back.
The tinkerer rolled over in sleep, a breathy sigh escaping her.
I’m sorry.
Then she opened the door and strode out.
Glancing up, she nodded at the waiting watchmen before heading for her dormitories, trying to ignore the guilt churning in her stomach.
It would be worth it. Soon.
Chapter 22
Gwen peered down at her steeped morning brew, which smelled suspiciously like last week’s stew.
As had become her habit, she sat at the table for circus staff in the mess hall with Bastian and several other cyborgs. The healer, Barbosa Brower, ate his food with an open mouth while Bastian didn’t eat at all. Despite the riveting company, her gaze strayed toward Rora’s table, where the acrobat sat alongside her friends, laughing and chatting.
Darkness settled over Gwen’s thoughts as her stomach twisted in knots.
Sensing her gaze, Rora looked up, and their eyes locked. She flashed a set of perfect square teeth. A look Gwen couldn’t read caught in Rora’s eyes before she turned her attention back to her friends.
Not until the early hours of the morning had Gwen finished installing Rora’s new hand. Somewhere near the end, Rora had passed out on the floor. Not having the heart to wake her, Gwen carried her to her bed before falling asleep on the floor.
When Gwen awoke later that morning, already late for breakfast, Rora had been gone. Rather than waking up to the face of the woman she was falling for, Gwen found a note beside her on the floor, which said, “Thank you! See you later today?”
It shouldn’t have stung as much as it did. Dark suspicion clouded her thoughts, and she tried to push it back. But it came to the forefront of her mind again and again.
Did Rora use me?
Why else would she conveniently disappear the morning after Gwen installed her new hand? It felt a hell of a lot like waking up to cold sheets beside her the morning after a good fuck.
Calm the fuck down. She probably had to do something this morning.
Not to mention, Rora had asked to see her later today.
The sound of a fork scraping against a plate grated Gwen’s senses, bringing her back to the present. Her eye twitched in response, sending a wave of pain through her. The swelling had yet to go down from Celeste’s recent beating.
“Rough night?” Bastian raised an eyebrow, setting his fork down and leaning forward on his elbows.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Gwen lied.
The few hours of sleep she’d gotten last night weren’t enough to make up for a sleepless night and the horrors within those days.
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
Swallowing a gulp of the loathsome brew, Gwen forced a smile. “Why so curious? Does the great Bastian Kabir want to give me a reason to stay up late?”
“While I appreciate the offer, I prefer my women to sleep only with me.”
“How terribly boring.”
“Some people would call it intimate.”
Mirroring Bastian’s position, Gwen leaned forward so that her breasts pressed against the tabletop. “Those people are prudes.” She eyed Bastian’s spotless collared shirt, vest, and jacket, wondering just what it would be like to unravel the stoic ringleader.
Without another word, she turned her attention to the healer, who studied his bowl as though performing surgery. “How’s Marzanna?”
Looking up, Barbosa goggled, cheeks flushed. It was then she realized one of his hands was still beneath the table.
She rolled her eyes. “I hope you wash those hands before you return to work.”
Stuttering, he blathered as he attempted to form sentences. Though she suspected the blood hadn’t yet returned to his brain. “Ms. Southerland was asleep when I checked on her this morning,” he managed after several failed attempts to reply.
Before she could inquire further, the room quieted. The sound of chatter morphed into a thunderous silence. The Mistress and her show management team stood at the front of the dining hall. The masked watchmen followed them, standing guard around the perimeter of the large room.
Half the tables were empty of the performers that filled them only a few short weeks ago. The mess hall had once been barely able to accommodate all of the performers. Now, countless cyborgs were gone, leaving shadows and memories of violence.
Images of carnage and severed limbs sprouted in Gwen’s mind. She could see with vivid clarity when she’d sawed a shoulder the night before, scarlet spurting onto the floor. One man had ripped through his restraints in his desperation to keep the cyborg elbow that connected his human hand with the flesh of his upper arm. The watchmen had bloodied him before restraining him. Another performer, a woman, had reached for her, desperately begging for mercy before she’d pissed herself.
Something touched Gwen’s shoulder, and she flinched away. When the touch came again, she opened her eyes, not recalling having closed them in the first place. She sat at her table, shaking, having completely missed what the Mistress had said… Something about the next competition?
Beside her, Bastian looked at her with worry in his eyes, his hand on her shoulder.
Sweat beaded on her brow. Her hands trembled, and she held them together in her lap, unable to make them stop.
I killed them. It’s my fault they’re dead or worse. I should have done something. I should have stood up to the Mistress. I should have kept her from turning me into a monster. I should have—
Bastian slid into the seat beside her. His hand found hers, holding tight.
Squeezing her eyes shut, she prayed for the moment of panic to pass.
As Bastian leaned toward her, her hair caught on the start of his beard. “Take deep breaths. In for four seconds, out for two.”
She did as instructed, breathing deeply before exhaling, counting the entire time in her mind.
A warm burst of peppermint air tickled her cheeks in time with her own breathing. When she opened her eyes several moments later, Bastian still had a hold of her hand.
“Better?” he whispered.
No, Gwen wanted to say.
Fear, panic, and regret tightened her chest, squeezing until she felt she couldn’t breathe.
“Keep breathing,” he urged.
She felt like she had been wrung out and left to dry. Her body screamed to move, to take action, as a deep restlessness
settled on her chest—tightening, squeezing. Meanwhile, her emotions felt raw and distant, as though they were someone else’s. Yet any time she thought of the competition, a crippling anxiety descended over her, and the feelings once again bombarded her like a meteor shower in space.
Nodding, she took a breath before exhaling slowly. As she did, the Mistress’s words slowly registered.
“It’s my pleasure to inform you that you’ll be performing on Jinx for the final competition.”
Had she heard that right? The moon known as the home of pirates, runaways, and the lawless type? That was where the circus would be performing?
What was the Mistress thinking? Their ships would be robbed within moments of docking, if not shot down before and sold for scrap. And why would this be a proper test of skill for the emperor?
“As performers, you must be able to win the hearts of the people,” the Mistress continued. “Unlike our previous competitions, there will be no lottery. The people will decide your fate. After our final twenty-three acts have performed, the people will vote for which ten they like the best. Those acts will go on to attend His Imperial Highness, and the rest will remain behind on Jinx as humans.”
Gwen’s heart raced at the implication behind those words.
Remain behind as humans.
She still had a job to do. One job left in this barbaric competition. Could she remove cyborg implants from thirteen more acts? She wasn’t sure she had it in her. But dare she defy the Mistress? She already had two strikes against her.
More than the threat to Gwen’s cyborg eye or physical well-being was the threat to Rora. Bastian had known about their nights together. Could the show management team know as well? Would they punish Rora or her friends for Gwen’s noncompliance? Would the Mistress dirty her hands and butcher the losing performers for their parts?
On a Union planet—besides Grandstand—the feds would arrest them as murderers. Even Grandstand, the dumping ground for cyborgs and other undesirables, had limited fed supervision—hence this ludicrous competition going uncontested. But on a moon of pirates and lawbreakers? The Mistress could simply say the cyborg implant retraction had gone sour for the final acts and dump the bodies in an alley. No feds would object. They’d be several planets away within Union territory.
