by Naomi Lucas
Dommik stopped and grabbed the bot by its head, lifting all 250 pounds of it off the ground. The android's head got tangled into the ropes crisscrossing and hanging from the ceiling. “You do not have permission. You should have told me the instant she was led outside her zone.”
“It wasn’t coded as a red, orange, or yellow alert, Master,” It said easily, unhindered by its mistreatment. Dommik set the bot on the floor and took a breath.
“Tell Bin-Three to go back to work. I’ll take care of it from here, and make anything to do with Kat, a red-alert.” He wiped his hand over his chest in disgust. “Leave. And never take her out of the zone again without my knowledge.”
“Yes, Master. Registered.” It moved away and out of his sight.
Dommik palmed his face, willing the headache coming on to go away. It took a lot for a Cyborg to get a headache and the events of this day were not likely to help. He didn’t envy Stryker and if he had to weigh who was having a worse day, he had to put them side-by-side. Women could do that.
Kat did that to him unknowingly on a daily basis. He looked up. The ropes were everywhere above him, leading all the way back to his cockpit and they only stopped at the end of the passageway. They hung from the grates and the metal tubes that lined the walls; some in an intricate pattern and other parts in disarray. It was thick with forced webbing, all of it to fill his strange impulses. And his need to be surrounded in a weave of his own design.
If she sees this…
Anyone who saw this either had one of two reactions: fear or confusion. A gut wrench that shivered through them. The only other person who saw this side of him and understood it was Stryker and it was only because he had his own eccentricities.
Dommik reached up and grabbed a tangle of cord. It soothed him. He ripped it from its support and let it fall at his feet. It was quickly forgotten as he made his way down the dark hallway in search of Kat.
He heard her well before he saw her.
The sound of sniffling reached his ears just as the scent of tears assailed him. Dommik quieted his steps and crept up on her, his frame invisible within the shadows.
Did she see the ropes? Is she crying because of fear?
He couldn’t tell so instead he watched her. Her copper curls were bent out of shape and fell in pressed waves along her head. The bumps of slender knees could just be seen over the chairs, bent up and hugged to her chest, her face just above them, her mouth kissing one of them in comfort.
Her cries breezed away while her hands came up to wipe off whatever dew that still lingered on her face. Eventually, her head tilted to the side and her hair fell to her shoulder, her breaths hushed and her heart fell into a slow rhythm.
He didn’t know how long he watched her, having forgotten everything but her tears, but he knew when she fell asleep.
Dommik shrugged off his uniform jacket and stepped from the shadows, draping it across her shoulders. Kat twitched under it before falling back to sleep. He rounded the couch and sat down next to her, soaking in her scent and sleeping pants. His eyes turned to the stars.
How could he trap a girl like her within his web? Someone who was wild to him, wild green eyes that pierced him every time she lifted her gaze, wild hair that shimmered under the dimmed lights, and a smell he still couldn’t place. His fingers drummed against the back of the couch, the other in his lap.
The sound of her sleeping soothed him. It was a break within the quiet hum of his ship. Dommik looked at her.
He could see her in his bed, lithe and molded into his side, he could feel her breaths breeze over his chest. He wanted to wrap her up, cage her away, make her into something he was only allowed to enjoy. His wingless fairy in his ropes.
Dommik tensed, disgusted with himself, and looked back at the view.
A moan pulled him back to her. Her hooded eyes brushed over with slender fingertips, only to massage the back of her neck. He sat silently, waiting for her to notice him; waiting for the inevitable.
“Oh.” Kat jerked. He watched her. “Shit.”
“Are you ill?”
She let her knees fall to the cushion, her bare feet slipped to the floor. “How long have you been there? No, why?”
“Awhile. One of my androids were taking you to the medical facility.”
The girl fidgeted, pulling down her night shift; but it barely touched her knees and even that was stretching it. Dommik had to fidget himself.
“Yeah, about that...I really hate peanut butter.”
“I don’t understand. Are you suddenly allergic to it? You have no outward signs.” He perused her body, satisfied that she all but glowed with health. “It’s high in protein.”
“I wasn’t a week ago but if I have to eat one more bar, I’m going to scream. No. I’m going to take it out on Bin-Three and then cannibalize his parts. At this point, I’m sure metal tastes better than those awful bars.” She crossed her arms and looked him dead in the eye. “Your bugs look better than those bars.”
Dommik leaned back and smirked. “So you would eat anything rather than another ration?”
His smile grew wider when her eyes locked on the bulge between his thighs. He widened his legs just a fraction. A blush that looked more like a blemish spotted her cheeks.
Kat swallowed but kept looking at him, at the spot that seemed to twitch and grow harder. He could have sworn she was undressing him with her eyes. Not the reaction I expected. Please continue.
She locked eyes with him. “You want me to take care of that?”
Dommik coughed and sat forward, running his hands through his hair. “Shit, Kat, no. I was teasing. If you’re not hurt then why were you crying?” He changed the subject but his mind was picturing something else entirely. Lips wrapped around his cock. He tried to will his growing erection away but it remained stiff and painful.
He didn’t have control of his body around her.
Kat continued to pin him down with her eyes. “I would ya know. It depends on the food I get out of it.” She laughed. “It can’t be worse than eating those bars.”
Dommik didn’t think he could get any harder. He pressed his hand over the tent he had on display and adjusted himself. “Why were you crying?” he asked again, trying to change the subject.
Kat’s smile got bigger. “You don’t look comfortable, Cyborg.”
“For fuck’s sake, if you wanted different food, you should have just said so.”
“You’re never around.”
“Can you imagine why?”
Dommik looked away, collecting his temper, watching the stars. It was harder now. His fingers dug into the couch, piercing the fabric and destroying the upholstery.
I can smell her...
Kat threaded her fingers together just as her stomach grumbled. “I’m hungry.”
“That’s why you were crying?”
“I think it is…”
He let out a long breath, knowing she wasn’t telling the truth. People don’t cry over food, not like she had. And it angered him. She was his to take care of, she lived on his ship, she drove him up the wall, literally.
“Wait here.” He stood up and stormed away, beyond his ropes, and into the rarely used kitchen. Dommik switched on the processor and put in the first thing that came to mind. With the offering in his hands, and the smell of cheese overwhelming him, he was back at her side within several minutes.
Kat hadn’t moved and he realized he hadn’t even asked her what she wanted. He was feeding her and he had no idea how to do it well. He ate the bare minimum as a Cyborg.
The pizza looked like crap in his hands.
She sat up and spun around. “Oh. My. God. Is that pizza?” She climbed over the couch.
“Yes.”
His eyes caught her bare legs as her shirt rode up and he missed it when it fell back into place.
“It’s for me, right?”
He narrowed his eyes, looking down at her. “Maybe.”
“I’m living off its fumes right now, please do
n’t be a sadist.”
“Don’t trick my androids again. If you’re sick, then be sick. They have been reprogrammed to tell me the moment you are in distress and the second you ask to go within a restricted zone. Do you understand, Kat?” His voice hard and forceful.
She looked from the pizza to him. “But it got me what I wanted.”
“Kat...”
“It got me time looking out in space. I’ve never seen it before, not like this.” She waved her hand. “It made me feel small.” Her breath hitched. “But it also got me companionship and well, I never thought I would worship the pizza delivery man but wow, Dommik, you could make any woman’s dream come true. You look like a fantasy.”
He looked down at the pie he was holding with hands half-gloved in leather only to look beyond at his Kevlar-clad body and the nano-grade body suit that peaked out from underneath. He handed her the pizza. She wrenched it out of his hands and lifted the entire thing to devour.
“Wait a moment.” He unsheathed his dagger while she placed it on the couch and cut the food into slices.
“Thank you,” she giggled. “Want a slice?” Moaning and chewing. Her throat swallowing each bite and all at once, he was picturing her with her mouth wrapped around his dick, swallowing him down. Dommik had to stop himself from adjusting, again. The light flickered on his console, it vibrated and shot out a holographic screen.
A new mission.
He read the missive in seconds and the screen was gone before Kat took another bite. Every muscle in his body went tense and the stress of the day shot through him like a bullet. It wasn’t an easy job, in fact, it was a difficult one and exponentially more with Kat on the ship. His eyes met hers.
She was watching him while she ate.
“A new retrieval,” he told her, unsure why.
“Where?”
“A moon, far from here.”
Kat canted her head, the pizza now forgotten next to her. “Is that...bad?”
“It’s in a Trentian controlled sector. It’s a small colony, a religious group shunned by the main sect of their species. But they remain protected by the Trentian military force and are still subjected to their laws.” His stress increased. He could feel his metal interior pull apart, screaming for release. His hand split in two and he hid it at his side while keeping Kat’s eyes. Dommik wanted to rip apart his ropes. He ached to do so much more.
“Bin-Three!” he yelled.
“Yes, Master?”
“Take Kat down below. Give her access to the menagerie food processor and the codes for standard Earthian food.”
“Yes, Master.”
Kat stood back up. “Wait, Dommik, what’s wrong with this mission?”
“Please follow me, Katalina Jones.” Bin-Three was at her side.
Dommik ignored her and turned away. He vanished into the dark interior of his ship as she called after him. His mind was elsewhere. His mind on Mia and the EPED. And his anger.
***
Dommik released his body. Tearing and ripping the outer layers of his armor off. Each of his arms split into two, his legs followed suit until he was an eight appendaged abomination. A spider.
The rope was in his hands and the rough tear of it snapped as he pulled it apart, yanking it from the walls. His teeth, metal disguised as bone, elongated as his jaw expanded and broke away from his face. The cords continued to fall as he tore them from the ceiling, climbing over them, bending the grates in his wake.
The smell of the wild-haired girl and the stench of the food was unshakeable, although it was far down the hallway. Shreds fell around him as he crawled across the wall. His fangs filled with the strongest nano-enhanced paralytic poison in the universe, taken from the DNA of dozens of venomous creatures from around the universe.
He wanted to sink himself into Kat. His teeth and his body.
Instead, he went into a frenzy, purging the second floor of all his weaved creations until his manic state exhausted itself. Until his androids came behind him and cleaned up his mess.
Dommik laid naked on the floor of the bridge and scraped the metal with his nails. Hours passed before he found himself again.
Chapter Eight:
---
The ship was flying into port and Kat was awake for it. She felt the tell-tale signs in her belly but she was also told by Bin-Three, her almost-constant creeper.
Kat rubbed her arms and entered the roach room, spending her time feeding and cleaning the filters of the critters. She was nervous and excited.
It had to be one of two places, Ghost City, where Gunner had mentioned, or the moon Dommik had been upset about the previous day. Either way, she was going to see it. She was awake. It’s going to happen.
The last of the enclosures closed, the alien bugs scattered around the strange, spiked sprout she fed it each day. It took the Gliese roaches hours to consume it even when every inch of the plant was covered up by hundreds of them. Until the green foliage was nothing but a stick of twitching critters. They made her sick.
She looked away and thrust the debris into sanitation.
Her muscles spasmed. And she knew the ship had landed, a hum released around her and the sound of the hatch opening filled the sterile room. Kat wiped her sweaty palms on her pants and walked into the facility.
She looked around but didn’t see Dommik.
Her steps faltered as a metal passageway opened up to a closed quarantine room. That’s not what I expected. Her eyes ran across the space again, looking for her Cyborg.
My Cyborg? Kat wiped her palms on her pants again. Ever since their conversation the day before, she felt a change, not only was Bin-Three with her like a shadow but a tension in the air. It wasn’t real but it felt like it was going to pop regardless.
There were no footsteps again last night. She had been waiting for them, wanting them and dreading them at the same time. Uncertain about the need to be with him. Kat bounced on her feet and continued to wait. A consuming, breathless, wanting had taken over her and it was dangerous.
What if he did approach my door? Could I risk sleeping with him?
She had never shown signs of having the parasite. She also knew that sexual intercourse could be a possibility of transferring it, although all studies on the illness suggested that it was neither an STD nor was it airborne. It was likely that it had to be ingested.
But how had my grandmother contract it? It doesn’t make sense. Kat still wasn’t willing to notify the medical branch. She was an expert on it and her grandmother never gave any indication, never told her anything about her time in the hospital visiting and waiting on her parents, on her.
She had chosen to give her nana the death she deserved, the death she had begged her for, in the comfort of her own home. It wasn’t smart.
Not by a long shot. She sighed.
Her love, her first love deserved the dangerous. Her grandmother had been her world.
It was what her grandma wanted. She had taken every precaution necessary to keep the house sanitized and insular with the help of her in-laws. They knew as much as she did and followed her grandmother’s wishes. Although she now knew why. The sooner she died, the sooner their inheritance would come.
Hah. Kat spent the money on a beautiful funeral for her, a deep cleansing of the house, and she had made a hefty donation towards research.
There was a fair amount left.
Kat touched the key-chip in her pocket. There was also the money from the house. The salary she made from the EPED, and all of it was collecting dust. Stale and unused. Even the amount she left for herself to buy a ticket off-world remained.
The money wasn’t the issue that plagued her though, it was the parasite, it was her attraction to a man who was half-machine. Can Cyborgs get sick? The idea that she would have opened her door to him last night and offered him a place in her bed; her tiny bed that would probably collapse with the two of them on it.
The door opposite the hatch opened up and she could now see a large, industrial sp
ace beyond. Dommik was still nowhere to be seen. Minutes went by in quiet. People walked in the distance. Her eyes followed them with envy.
Kat wiped her hands again and went toward the exit. The click of Bin-Three followed her. She stepped through the hatch and it didn’t stop her, it didn’t stop her when she went through it to the other side and stepped onto the port. It joined her on the deck.
“What is this place?”
“This is Ghost City, Katalina Jones. It’s ruled by cybernetic beings.”
Oh. They were in a giant docking station with a large opening at one end that led farther into the city and the rest was filled with small flyers static in the middle and dozens of passageways that resembled the one she had just come through. Each one, she assumed, led to a docked ship.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“It doesn’t exist.”
She turned to the android. “How is that possible?”
“It's a city based inside a giant planetary colonization ship, one of the originals, bought, salvaged and upgraded by its owner. It’s constantly traveling through uncharted space and only Cyborgs, with some exceptions, are privy to its coordinates. They are revoked if it’s compromised.”
“And this is its port?” She moved deeper into the cavernous space. Her body was a speck in comparison to the docked ships. There were more vessels than people and as she took in the high, arched walls and chrome interior her mouth went slack.
“This is part of the city. Each ship must remain open as decreed from the leader, it is a merchant hub where Cyborgs can buy and trade with one another and not be under the jurisdiction of any government.”
Kat walked with Bin-Three along the railway, peering into open passageways that led to other docked ships, most remained empty. There were a handful of beings around but none were close enough to talk to or discern their humanity. It was also quiet and made her want to whisper.
The lack of people reminded her of the New American Port at home. Half shut down, unused, and barricaded off; John and the tea stand.
