****
Nauseated, humiliated, and in pain, Christian followed one of the new models to the laboratory. His guide was a pretty young man with long auburn hair and forest-green eyes. The creature didn’t walk. He sashayed. None of it mattered. In minutes, he’d be with March. Even now, they were readying her for the transfer.
When he entered the lab, his heart slammed to a halt. What he saw terrified him.
March lay in a comfortable, normal bed. On the other side of a strange-looking computer was her exact replica on a hospital bed. Its eyes were closed, hers open and wide. Fear vibrated the air. She captured his gaze and whispered his name.
He whispered, “I love you,” and she relaxed, smiling. The nurse anesthetist inserted a needle into the IV on her arm, and her eyes closed. For the last time.
Christian’s heart nosedived, panic gripping his throat. The urge to run to her and stop the transfer seized him. Yet he found he couldn’t move.
The surgeon fitted the helmet which would monitor and alter the traffic between the two hemispheres of March’s brain, using carefully controlled electromagnetic fields. During this eavesdropping, the computer would construct a model of her mental activities in the android brain.
As the minute hand on the clock crept toward an hour, Christian stood by the door in numb motionlessness. God, what if the transfer failed? He’d killed the woman he loved. Guilt crawled over him, but he was too terrified to give the useless feeling much thought. Again and again, he reminded himself that this process was March’s only hope. His mind accepted it but his heart did not.
“Oh God, no.” His hands flew to cover his eyes as they shifted March’s body onto a hospital bed identical to the one occupied by the motionless robot.
As they rolled his beloved’s corpse by him, he grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth, fighting not to weep aloud. She was no paler than she’d been in life, her skin still warm, but she was dead, and the horrible truth echoed in his head.
“You must let her go now,” the nurse said. “Her duplicate should soon awaken.”
But, you see, I can’t let her go.
A sound behind him jerked his attention to the computer and the other bed. From behind came the rattle of the gurney’s wheels on tile, but he scarcely heard. Dread squeezed his heart. The android blinked, sat up and looked around the room. Her gaze locked on him. No recognition shone in the eyes. His stomach wrenched as he pushed off the wall and came to horrified attention. It blinked rapidly as the surgeon unplugged and removed the helmet. Again, those familiar yet strange eyes fixed on him.
He took a cautious step forward. The robot cringed back, its eyelids fluttering. Dear God, the transfer had failed! The agony of loss bled through him. I’ll volunteer to be the recipient of the next transfer. If only I could obliterate myself now.
A slow smile curved its lips. His breath stalled. The droid launched itself off the bed and raced toward him, arms outstretched. The gray hospital gown fluttered around it. She crushed him to her, tight enough to break a human rib.
“Christian, Christian, it’s me. I’m here.” She tilted her head to look up at him.
March’s eyes sparkled.
He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her, long and desperately. “March, my March.” Emotion made his voice gruff. “Oh, my darling, we are immortal. We can be together. Forever.”
She nodded, smiling, tangled her hands in his hair and tiptoed to kiss him. Then she threw back her head and laughed, dancing a circle around him, as she sang, “I love you, yeah, yeah, yeah.”
A word about the author…
Something of a gypsy—actually nothing quite so romantic!—Linda was born in South Carolina but has lived in England, Canada, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta and Houston. She’s seen a lot of this country from the windshield of a truck pulling a horse trailer. For many years, she bred, trained, and showed Andalusian horses. Her stallion Bonito was twice National Champion in Halter.
She started writing early in life, mostly poetry dripping with angst, but her writing career came to a screeching halt when an editor at the local newspaper critiqued her work. As a result, she put down her pen for twenty years. When she started writing again, she was undaunted but maybe daunting. Her first manuscript topped 1,000 pages, following the beloved hero Morgan D’Arcy everywhere he went. That book later became her second published novel, Sinners’ Opera, at a much smaller page count.
Linda has won several writing awards, including the Georgia Romance Writers Magnolia Award and the SARA. Her first published novel, Gemini Rising, a dark fantasy, was first in the 2012 Preditors & Editors Poll in the Mainstream category. She has two other paranormal romances, Cardinal Desires, (the Maggie winner) and Sinners’ Obsession, a sequel to Sinners’ Opera. Black Swan, a short story, is available from The Wild Rose Press. Currently, she writes copy for a Houston advertising agency.
Linda is the mother of two wonderful sons, a retired legal assistant, a member of the Houston Symphony League and enjoys events with her car club. She loves to dress up and host formal dinner parties.
http://www.lindanightingale.com
Blog: http://lindanightingale.wordpress.com/
Twitter: @LNightingale
https://www.facebook.com/linda.nightingale.52
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Love For Sale Page 23
