Surprise and then disbelief widened Cole’s eyes, but it was fleeting. He brought his fist up between them and slammed it into the underside of Chance’s chin, jacking his head back. Cole tried to wrench the bar loose at that point. When he failed, he released it and threw a half dozen jackhammer punches at Chance’s face and belly, slamming him against the wall behind him.
He planted his forearm across Chance’s throat then, leaning into it. “Where’s the vial?” he growled.
Chance hesitated, debating whether to answer him or not, to answer truthfully, or fabricate a believable response.
“Answer me, god damn it! Did she already implant one?”
Chance said nothing.
Cole bore down with more weight and finally uttered a frustrated growl when he could see that it wasn’t having any effect. “They’re mine, by the way. The seedlings. So when your woman implants it, that’ll be my baby in her belly.”
It was calculated to anger him.
Chance realized that immediately.
He also knew he should not actually feel any anger, but he felt something shift when the man said ‘your woman’ and ‘my baby’. It was like a gusher of emotions—primarily fury.
He gave Cole a shove that sent him reeling backwards and leapt at him. Catching him full in the chest, he carried Cole to the floor and managed to land two blows to his face before Cole deflected the third with his arm.
“She is my woman,” Chance growled. “And anything in her belly is mine also!”
Cole managed to throw him off. Both leapt to their feet and then charged one another. In the space of a handful of seconds, they had managed to tip an entire row of small lockers and set off an alarm of some sort, although neither of them paid much attention to it.
They’d managed to work off a good bit of their rage by throwing punches at one another and slamming one another into the walls and floor when they were abruptly interrupted by a commanding female voice that stopped both of them in their tracks.
It wasn’t Anika, however.
It was Captain Amy.
She had a pistol aimed directly at them.
Without hesitation, she shot Cole as he turned to look at Chance, clearly in no mood to wait until they had completely worn out their aggression toward one another.
Cole felt a jolt and then blackness engulfed him and he drifted toward the floor like a feather and landed like a ten ton boulder.
“I don’t think all of you together will be able to lift him. Go get a cart.” She turned her attention to Chance. “Will you come peacefully? Or do I need to give you a jolt from the taser, too?”
Chance lifted his hands palm outward in a gesture of surrender.
* * * *
It took Anika longer to catch up to Chance than it had taken Chance to catch up to Cole—mostly because she just couldn’t believe Chance had ignored her and kept going. By the time she accepted that he wasn’t going to turn around and come back, she was too late to see what level he’d gotten off on. The lift was already returning to the second level where they generally ‘parked’. It was just passing the third level, though, so she thought he might have gotten off on that level or the fourth.
She didn’t recall anything on the third level that might be a destination for him, unfortunately. There were cabins, but they didn’t actually know anyone on the ship yet and she couldn’t imagine Chance going out of his way to socialize with anyone. That left the hiber-pods and there was certainly no reason for him to go there.
Nevertheless, she stopped on the third floor and explored it end to end in search of him. She was already headed back to the lift when the alarm sounded. That sent her into a panic and apparently a good many other people, as well, because most of the passengers screamed, threw down whatever they were holding, and began falling all over each other in a mad panic to get to the life boats.
Thankfully, Anika didn’t get the chance to make a fool out of herself. She got knocked down and shoved into a corner in the crazed flight and by the time the stampede had passed her, security was already making an announcement over the com system that there was no need to panic. The alarm was for a security breach on the fourth level. Everyone should immediately return to their cabins in an orderly fashion, etc., etc.
Some of the people remained stubbornly encamped in their life pod. Some, looking shaken and pale with shock, staggered out weakly and headed to their cabins. Others, furious from having the shit scared out of them for what appeared to be nothing, ignored the orders to go to their cabin and congregated in the lounging area to bitch about the way the crew was running things.
When Anika had managed to collect her wits, it occurred to her forcefully that Chance must have headed down to the fourth level for some reason and that the security breach must be connected to him in some way.
She hadn’t spotted Cole as he had, so she had no reason to think that the situation was anything but a misunderstanding.
Actually, she didn’t think it would have occurred to her anyway, but she immediately saw that the security team was dead serious about the breach. When she arrived on the fourth level it was in time to see a robotic gurney exiting the section of the hold where the colonists’ lockers were. Behind it was a small army of security guards surrounding Chance, who was wearing wrist and ankle restraints. The captain was in the lead.
Anika halted and gaped at the group heading toward her, or more specifically at the body on the gurney since she wasn’t able to immediately identify the occupant.
“Is he …? Is he …?”
“Unconscious?” Captain Lee asked. “Yes. I tased him. Detective Parker didn’t appear to be willing to surrender. He might have a headache and a few aches and pains from his fight, but otherwise he’ll be fine and he’s going to have plenty of time in the brig to recover.”
Stunned nearly stupid by the information, Anika’s gaze moved from the man she now realized was Cole, identified by the captain as none other than the cop who’d been chasing her, to Chance in shackles at the rear of the group.
His expression was unreadable when she met his gaze.
“We’ve placed him under arrest, as well. You can check with the desk guard at the brig in the first level … tomorrow, maybe. Or you can wait. I’ll make sure you’re notified when I’ve had the chance to review the security videos and get to the bottom of this.”
Anika glanced at the captain when she spoke, trying to take in what she was saying, but not much really registered at that time. She was reeling from the discovery that the ‘hunk’ was her nemesis and the realization that Chance was somehow involved.
How?
Why?
Mostly how, though.
Chance had AI, granted, but he wasn’t supposed to be autonomous. He was a domestic. He was supposed to take his orders from her.
He actually wasn’t a Herc500, though, she thought abruptly. The Herc wasn’t autonomous. Clearly, Chance was and that set off fresh alarms.
It was unfortunate that the alarms weren’t enough to jog her memory and answer the very important question of why she should know that and what it might mean.
Chapter Six
Anika didn’t know what had everyone so stirred up, but there was enough unrest in the lounging area to drive her to her cabin for quiet reflection.
Unfortunately, that was still elusive in the beginning because Chance was immediately noticed by his absence. He was so big that he dominated the small space of the cabin when they spent any time there.
She told herself the space seemed empty because it was empty.
It had nothing to do with her having gotten so used to Chance being there that she felt more alone that he wasn’t than she’d ever felt before.
It had nothing to do with anxiety over the unknown.
Because she had no idea what might become of him now.
Captain Lee had made it clear that she was in charge and calling all the shots and ‘legal’ was whatever she said was legal.
She didn’t kn
ow the woman. She might be a tower of fairness or she could be a monster that relished wielding her power over everyone and having them quake in fear of what she might do to them.
Truthfully, the comments the captain had made to her regarding the cop seemed to suggest she might be no nonsense, but she was completely fair, but could she trust that? Could she trust that Chance would be returned to her after he’d served whatever time the captain thought he should?
Or might the captain simply dispose of him as a danger to the other colonists that she couldn’t allow?
She was sorry that had occurred to her because it disturbed her very deeply.
And it was even more disturbing when she realized some time later that neither the cash lost, the loss of a possession, or the loss of the seedlings he was carrying crossed her mind.
She’d grown accustomed to having him around.
His presence comforted her. She felt safe and protected when he was around.
She felt companionship.
She didn’t know when she’d come to depend upon him in that way, but there seemed little point in trying to convince herself it wasn’t so when she anticipated a great deal of unhappiness if he wasn’t returned to her.
Unfortunately, she didn’t know how likely that was.
She couldn’t imagine what he might have done.
Or why he’d been in the hold in a confrontation with the cop.
The captain had told her previously that he had gone down to the hold to search for evidence and suggested that she’d ordered him locked in, and she knew that evidence would have to be the seedlings. And it stood to reason he might have decided to take another look since she knew for a fact that he hadn’t found the evidence he was searching for. But why would Chance follow him? Chance certainly knew there was absolutely no possibility that Cole would find the vial down there. He had to be aware that there was nothing incriminating in the things she had stored below decks. He had helped her move the stuff.
Well, maybe he didn’t.
Considering she’d bought him from what now seemed to her must have been a person of questionable ethics and the black market purchase of her seedlings it didn’t seem too farfetched to think that Chance might have gotten the idea that that was typical behavior for her. And if he believed that, it also wasn’t a stretch to consider she might have had other contraband hidden in her belongings.
She wouldn’t be surprised if that reasoning was what had convinced the cop it was worth risking another look.
But was that what had happened?
She tried to work through that scenario in her head, but the truth was she had never even ventured into a gray area of illegality before in her life and she had no idea how that kind of scenario might play out.
Maybe Chance followed Cole and discovered Cole had broken in to her locker—which must have set off the alarm—and was going through the stuff and he had tried to reason with Cole and the guards had arrived while he was there?
Both of them had looked as if they’d been in a fight, but she just couldn’t accept the possibility that Chance had fought Cole.
Unless Cole had been stupid enough to attack Chance?
So if the security team had come upon a fight, they would definitely have arrested both.
Chance wouldn’t have started a fight.
It would have to be Cole’s fault and maybe that meant they’d let Chance go after they’d reviewed the security vids?
She got up and paced after a while, too restless to sit still, trying to distance herself from her worrisome thoughts.
It drove her from the cabin in a little bit, but she discovered the lounge was still teaming with highly emotional people—mostly angry people.
She’d barely arrived when there was an announcement over the com system.
“Due to the destructive melee that resulted from the activation of the security alarm, and the resulting injuries sustained by fully a third of the passengers in the panic that ensued—broken teeth, missing teeth, concussion, bruises, cuts, lacerations, broken fingers and toes and even a couple of broken arms—starting a week from today all passengers will be expected to participate in daily emergency drills for the next several weeks and then monthly drills thereafter.”
Anika felt a wave of cold and then heat wash over her.
The anger, which in retrospect, had seemed to be waning, rose several notches and the crowd became nearly as loud and antagonistic as they had been when Anika had first arrived from the ‘incident’—that had apparently caused a serious backlash.
She decided it might be safer—for her—if she headed back to her cabin and stayed there.
She thought the odds weren’t high that the others would figure out that she had anything to do with it, and possibly take out their anger on her, but why take a chance?
* * * *
Chance was bored.
He had not been bored when he had arrived. He had been deeply disturbed and confused about the situation. He had done nothing but defend himself, after all.
He could understand that they would not only arrest the cop for starting the fight, but also because—far from showing any remorse—he had been clearly antagonistic and ready to dispute the captain’s prerogative in arresting him.
He had not hesitated to yield to authority, however, and he had been willing and able to defend his actions if he had only gotten the opportunity to do so.
He thought it was very unreasonable that they had not allowed it.
And that was mostly what had made him uneasy and confused.
If they were so unreasonable they would not allow an explanation, then it seemed to follow that the discovery that he was a cyborg would make them less reasonable.
Because that was the one thing he recalled very clearly when he had begun to remember the past.
He had been found in the dump because there had been an order to destroy him and dispose of him.
What was less clear was why they had tried to destroy him.
Memories from before the furnace were spotty at best.
Memories of the furnace, where he had been packed in so tightly with all of the others who had been destroyed were, unfortunately, very clear.
Afterwards, there was nothing for a very long time.
He was not certain how he knew that a very long time had passed when he could not recall having awakened to full awareness, but he had felt that it was a very long time and he also felt that the fact that there was no longer anyone who seemed to know what he was supported that belief.
Because, if it had not been a very long time since all of that had happened, then surely the humans would recall?
Of course, they might not have been aware of the destruction to begin with.
He could not rule that out. Even though it had seemed to be a very large operation to him, he could not recall anything that suggested the destruction was more than localized—within the place that had created him.
Because he could not recall a time before and he had to accept that there was a very good possibility that there had been no time before. He might have been taken directly from the room where he was created and down to the furnace.
Mayhap he was simply the discard of a batch that had not turned out as it should have?
He did not like to think that, but he could not dismiss it entirely.
He had not seen another like himself in all of the time since Grandpa and Sonny had taken him from the dump and Sonny had repaired him … to a point where the nanoes inside of him were able to complete the process.
That could mean that there were no others because he was part of an experiment that had failed.
Or perhaps there had been once upon a time but they had been discarded because it had been so long ago?
The fact was, he had more questions than answers since that strange thing had happened to him and seemed to open his mind to memories—because there was very little there to draw from. He knew he had accessed an area of the brain where there should have be
en stored memories because he had found some, but not enough to account for a great deal of time or to explain the things he questioned.
His programming did not even seem to have been completed.
He had concluded that because there was nothing there about the fucking Sonny had alluded to. He had been given the apparatus to perform, but no instructions on how to perform.
And he was certain that he had had this apparatus Sonny referred to as cock and balls—or jewels and shaft—before Grandpa had insisted that he needed it and sent Sonny to find one.
He believed it because it was not simply attached to his belly. There were organs and tissue inside that connected with it.
He wanted to do this with Anika.
He had been on fire to do this with Anika since he had first seen her and realized she was the objective of Grandpa and Sonny having replaced his missing genitals.
This was for her.
He just was not certain of how he was supposed to use it on her.
The shape of it suggested that he was supposed to put it inside of her genitals, which would have been made to receive.
But that blew his mind and he had not yet been able to get past that.
Not that that seemed to matter.
He had accessed all the data and programming that he had and he had not found anything at all helpful.
He thought that he had some hope that Anika would explain, or demonstrate, the process if he could just convince her to allow it. Unfortunately, he could not help but see that she was not nearly as keen to allow it as he was to try it, but she did want a child and he had the seedlings she wanted and he had some hope that she would get around to it.
Unless the captain decided to blow him out of the airlock.
* * * *
Sebastian jolted to a halt for a handful of seconds when he saw the pair of miscreants captured in the hold on the surveillance monitor above the desk he was supposed to man as guard. These ‘men’ were not men as he had been told they were.
At least not the one that was currently tearing small pieces from the disposable bedding on his cot, rolling them into tiny balls between his fingers, and flicking them at the open mouth of the other prisoner, who was snoring loudly and apparently unaware his companion was trying to choke him to death.
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