by T. J. Quinn
“I hadn't thought of that. You can’t?” she was surprised.
“No, we can’t, because the nanocybots consider the fertilized eggs as strange bodies.”
For a moment, she failed to fully understand what he was saying, but when she did, she was in shock. “Oh… oh, god… that’s terrible.”
“That’s why we’re conceived in labs and not in human or cyborg wombs,” he explained, with a stern look on his face.
“There has to be a way…”
“Well, they have worked on that for years, and so far they haven’t been able to find it,” he said, with a hint of sadness in his tone.
“Well… there isn’t much I can do now, other than hope for the best,” she said, in a soft tone, realizing all the implications of the nanocybots presence in her.
Zandar cleared his throat and got up. “I think I’ll go stretch my leg for a few minutes,” he mumbled, exiting the cave and leaving the other two alone.
“If I had known the nanocybots would stay alive inside you, I wouldn’t have touched you… it was never my intention to harm you in any way…” Rafaroy said, with a stern tone.
But she covered his lips with her fingers. “Shush… it’s not your fault. Besides, we’re not even sure of it… we’re just guessing,” she said, in a gentle tone. “I wouldn’t have changed the past days for the ephemeral possibility of having children in the future, believe me,” she assured him.
She knew she was revealing her feeling more than she would have wished, but she felt he had the right to know she didn’t regret a second of the moments they had shared.
Leaning forward, he kissed her as if there was no tomorrow and only the return of Zandar was able to break them apart.
“Sorry… I didn’t mean to interrupt…” Zandar apologized, sounding embarrassed.
“You didn’t. It’s time we get some sleep,” Rafaroy said, with a scowl.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The following day, the snow had stopped, so they were able to continue their journey to the coordinates Khajal had given Rafaroy.
When they were close to the place, both men stopped startled.
“What’s the matter?” Elena asked, stopping to look at them.
“There are humans nearby, more exactly, right where we’re heading,” Rafaroy explained, clearly frustrated.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I can sense them too. There are at least ten soldiers heavily armed,” Zandar confirmed.
Elena rubbed her face, desperate. “Now what? What shall we do?”
“We’ll need to find a place to hide while we find a way to contact the other cyborgs,” Rafaroy explained. “Stay here, I’ll go take a look to see what I can find out.”
“Be careful, please,” she asked him, worried.
“I will be.”
He disappeared among the trees, and Elena took a seat with Alanna, on a fallen trunk.
“What will happen now?” the little girl asked, scared.
“Let us wait for Rafaroy to return, then, we’ll decide what to do,” she replied as calmly as possible. There was no use in scaring the little girl.
It took Rafaroy a couple of hours to return. The expression on his face didn’t look promising.
“They’ve set camp there. As we estimated, there are ten men. It would be hard to take them all down, and that’s not the kind of thing I would do if I have a choice,” he explained.
“What are we going to do then?” Zandar asked, worried.
“We need to find a transmitter.”
“The only way is to find a Taucets colony. They should help us out like they have done with several other cyborgs,” Zandar suggested, though the frown on his face showed he wasn’t very pleased with the idea.
“That would put the girls in danger. We’ll have to find another way,” Rafaroy rejected his friend’s idea. “Right now, we need to get out of here and find a place safe to hide while we decide what to do.”
“Where can we go?”
“Let’s head back to the Taucets colony. The place should be empty by now, and we could find a working transmitter in the ruins,” he suggested. “We can’t stay here. We have no idea what sort of technology they have up there, and the last thing we need is for them to detect us.”
The girls got up at once, and they left with the cyborgs.
A few minutes later, though, Zandar stopped and looked at some point on his left. “What the hell is that?” he asked, pointing at it.
Rafaroy looked at what he was signaling, and before the girls could ask what was going on, they were running towards the object Zandar had spotted.
Startled, the girls followed them, not sure they should.
“Rafaroy?” Elena called him when they were close enough.
He walked to where she was, with a wide smile. “It’s a Taucet vessel. There’s no transmitter, but it has enough fuel to take us out of here a lot faster,” he explained.
“What’s it doing out here?” she asked suspiciously.
“We’ve scanned the area, there are no Taucets around. For some reason, someone abandoned the vessel here, and now it’s ours,”
She chuckled. “Can you fly it?” she asked, amused with his enthusiasm.
“I can fly anything, sweetie… it’s a pity this vessel isn’t big enough to take us to Arcadia, but I’m happy it can take us out of here,” he assured.
They got inside the vessel, and just a few moments later, the vessel was on the air, heading to the colony. They still wanted to check the ruins, in case they could find a transmitter to send a message to the other cyborgs.
As expected, the colony was a total ruin. Everything appeared to be destroyed, but even so, the men walked around the place, trying to find anything useful. They found food, fuel for the vessel and even some clothes, but not much more. They were about to return to the vessel when Rafaroy found the communications’ room. The place was a wreck, but the found a transmitter. It wasn’t working, but they gathered a few things they could use to try and fix it.
It wasn’t a solution, but it was better than nothing.
They returned to the vessel and loaded all they had found. “We need to decide where to go. With the vessel, we have a lot more choices.”
“We need a place where we can find food easily, but far from any city or town,” Elena pointed out.
“There’s a Taucet colony in Australia. We could fly to one of the desert islands near it and establish our camp in it. If we can’t find a way to fix the transmitter, one of us could pay a visit to the Taucets and contact the cyborgs,” Rafaroy suggested.
“Those tropical islands will have enough fruits and vegetables to please me and meat and fish to please you,” Elena replied, pleased.
“Exactly, we can be self-sufficient in a place like that.”
“It’s a plan then.”
They boarded the vessel once more, and after setting course for the island, they were on their way.
The island they found was quite small, but a real paradise. They managed to build a pretty good shelter near a waterfall, and they had enough food. The only cloud in their sky was their inability to fix the transmitter.
They had been on the island for a month now, and Rafaroy’s impatience seemed to grow with each day that went by. Elena tried to understand his feelings, but she hadn't been feeling that well herself, lately.
“We’ll have to pay a visit to the Taucets’ colony,” Rafaroy announced, one afternoon, while they walked along the beach, watching the beautiful sunset.
“You haven’t been able to fix the transmitter.” She wasn’t asking.
“No, and though we could live here for a while longer, this is not the life I want for me,” he stated, with a frustrated tone.
She raised her head a bit too suddenly to look at him and the world spun around and she almost fell to the ground. His quick action was the only thing preventing it.
“What’s the matter? What happened?” he asked, with a deep frown, still holding
her in his arms.
“I just felt a bit dizzy, that’s all… but I caught some kind of bug or something…” she said, in a faltering tone.
He looked at her, and for the first time, he noticed the deep eye bags and how pale she was, despite the golden skin color she had gained under the tropical sun. “Why haven’t you told me about this?” he asked, feeling his heart racing in his chest.
“I’m sure it’s nothing Rafaroy, just a normal bug, I’ll be alright soon,” she assured her.
“You don’t look alright. I have been so concentrated on the damn transmitter I have lost sight of the things around me,” he said in a self-deprecating tone.
“I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m sure all I need is some rest, and I’ll be fine.”
“Let’s go back to the shelter,” he insisted, and she accepted, not willing to make a fuss over something so insignificant.
Alanna was helping Zandar prepare dinner. They were cooking fish, and the scent was too much for Elena’s stomach. Covering her mouth, she ran from the place, just in time before she threw up all she had eaten during the day.
Rafaroy had followed her and was standing next to her, more worried than ever.
“This seems something more than a bug,” he said, taking a seat on a rock and pulling her into his arms.
“I know we’ve never talked about this and I never felt I had the right, but, considering the situation, I guess it’s pertinent,” he started saying.
Elena looked at him, intrigued, not sure what he meant by his words. “What are you talking about, Rafaroy?”
“Did you have a husband or a lover before you were taken by the Taucets?” he asked.
“No, I didn’t. I don’t remember the last time I went on a date with a man,” she replied, still not getting his point.
“What about the Taucets? Did they touch you before they put you in your cell?”
“Rafaroy, what the hell are you talking about?”
He looked at her, clearly uncomfortable. “You have all the symptoms of a pregnant woman, Elena,” he finally said. “I have been so focused on getting us out of here I failed to see the signs. You gained some weight, your breasts are bigger and heavier, your dizziness, and nausea… they all point at it.”
“And you’ve assumed I was pregnant before we met. Why?” she asked, too astonished with his train of thoughts as to really assimilate the truth.
“Cyborgs can’t breed, remember? The nanocybots destroy all embryos because they consider them defective eggs,” he explained, in a stern tone.
“Yes, you told me so. You also told me that same would happen to me since your nanocybots now live in me,” she pointed out.
“Obviously, I was wrong…”
She jumped up, stepping away from him. “In more ways than you think, Rafaroy because if I’m pregnant, you’re the father.”
Her words felt like a wall of rocks falling over him. That couldn’t be possible. Cyborgs couldn’t breed… everybody knew that…
“There’s no other possible candidate,” she stated, crossing her arms over her chest, as the idea of being pregnant finally started to set in.
“But…” he started saying, as he jumped to his feet. “That can’t be…” he walked away from her, troubled with the idea of Elena pregnant with his child.
Elena was still having trouble accepting the possibility of being pregnant, but she sure as hell hadn't expected Rafaroy’s reaction. She was sure he wouldn’t have reacted worse if she had told him they were stranded on that island for the rest of their lives.
Struggling to keep her tears at bay, she turned around to return to the shelter. There was no point in worrying about a possibility. If she were pregnant, she would deal with it later… and clearly, alone.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Rafaroy returned after they had gone to bed. Elena heard him pacing the beach in front of the shelter for a few minutes before he went to where Zandar was sleeping and woke him up.
“What’s going on?” the other man grumbled.
“Is there anything on the vessel we could use to scan a human body?” he asked his friend, ignoring his protests.
“What do you mean? Like look for a broken bone or something?” fully awake, Zandar got up and faced his friend.
“Yes, something like that.”
“I guess there is… the same scan we use to look for enemies inside thick structures.”
“Could we use it to scan Elena?”
Zandar frowned. “Why the hell would you want to do that?” he asked, looking at Rafaroy as if he had lost his mind.
“I have reasons to believe she’s pregnant…by me,” Rafaroy replied miserably.
Zandar’s expression went from delight to terror. “Are you sure? Cyborgs aren’t supposed to be able to breed,” he asked, sounding horrified.
Too upset with the men’s reactions to her possible pregnancy, Elena jumped out of bed and walked to where they were standing.
“Listen, I understand you’re not happy with the possibility, but there’s no reason for you to show your horror to my little sister. She wouldn’t understand it, so why don’t you take this conversation somewhere else?” she ranted, through gritted teeth.
With a desperate look on his face, Rafaroy grabbed her by the arm and took her out of the shelter, next to where they had landed the vessel. Zandar followed them.
“You have no idea what this implies, Elena,” he said, rubbing his face with his hand. “All the women the doctors used as a human incubators for cyborgs died before giving birth to the babies. Apparently, a cyborg baby is too demanding for a woman’s body, and it drains her completely. None of the women survived,” he explained. “If you’re pregnant by me, that’s exactly what will happen to you.”
For a moment, she was unable to utter a single word. “You can’t know that for sure,” she protested.
“I’m not willing to take the risk, damn it,” he shouted, closing the distance between them and taking her in his arms. “I can’t lose you, not now that I’ve found you, don’t you understand that?”
She was so surprised with his confession, she wasn’t able to utter a single word for a few moments. “You won’t lose me…” she assured him.
“Yes, I will… if you’re pregnant, then I will… I will lose you and the baby…”
She cupped his face and pulled him closer, grazing her lips over his. “Have a bit more faith… if I’m pregnant, then this baby was conceived against all the odds. It’s a special baby, and it won’t kill me, I’m sure of that.”
“Why don’t we check instead of making suppositions?” Zandar said, after clearing his throat, feeling the couple had forgotten he was still there. “Let’s scan her body, and once we have proofs, we’ll be able to make better decisions.”
“Are you sure you’ll be able to scan her?” Rafaroy asked, turning to look at his friend.
“If the baby has bones, then yes, we’ll be able to see it. It’s not a medical scan, but I’m sure we’ll be able to know either she’s pregnant or not,” Zandar explained.
“Let’s do it then.”
“Will this harm the baby in any way?” she asked, stopping Rafaroy.
“No, not at all. These rays won’t harm any of you,” Zandar assured her.
“Very well then.”
“Please, stay here. You won’t feel a thing,” he promised, entering the vessel.
Rafaroy stood beside her.
A few moments later, Zandar called them to the vessel. And there, displayed on a huge screen, she saw the first image of her baby. She was pregnant.
“There’s no doubt, you’re expecting a baby,” Zandar confirmed it.
Rafaroy turned to look at her, one step from losing his mind. “You have to end it.”
“No… I could never do such a thing…” she murmured, taking a step away from him.
“It will kill you… we’re on a desert island with no medical assistance, and we can’t get you to a hospital in case of an emergency. You’
ll die.” There was so much desperation in his tone, her eyes filled with tears.
“You don’t know that. You thought it was impossible for me to get pregnant and yet, I am… this is a miracle, don’t you see it?” she said, trying to convince him. “The nanocybots inside me allowed this to happen. They will also make sure I’m alright during the whole process.”
“You’re not alright. You already look tired, and you felt dizzy back there, on the beach…” he pointed out, still far from accepting her refusal to have an abortion.
“Those are natural things on a pregnant woman… Rafaroy, I can do this alone, if it comes to it, but I need you at my side. I need you with me, our baby needs us,” she pleaded.
He shook his head, still too anguished to even accept the possibility of losing her. In just a few days, she had become the center of his universe. He didn’t quite understand why he felt that way about her, but he had no doubt. He didn’t want to live without her.
“We’ll be here for her, Rafaroy and if things get too complicated, we can take her to see a doctor. There must be someone willing to help us around here,” Zandar said, trying to help his friend.
Rafaroy hid his face behind his hands for a few seconds. “We need to get in touch with Arcadia,” he said, with a determined tone. “You have to go meet the Taucets and ask them to contact them for us.”
“This is not the moment for that, Rafaroy. We only have enough fuel to get to Australia. If they refuse to help me, I’ll be stranded there, and you’ll have no way off the island,” Zandar pointed out in a conciliatory tone. “I think we should save the fuel for an emergency. I’ll keep working on the transmitter. I still have a few ideas that might work.”
“This is insane, you know that?” Rafaroy said, still feeling desperate. He was a man of action. Waiting to see what happens was not his modus operandi.
She gave him a faint smile, as she put her hands over her slightly swollen belly. “This is our baby, Rafaroy… our little miracle. How could I possibly give up on him?”
He crossed the distance between them and held her in his arms. “I know… I know… I’m just too afraid of losing you…”
