Cyborg (6 page)

“Asshole!” Amaryllis snarled at him as he reached it.

He hesitated and turned his head to glare at her. “I realize that you are handicapped by your human weaknesses, but you may wish to consider the consequences of making your presence known.”

Amaryllis gaped in outrage.

He’d called her stupid and weak! He thought she was inferior because she was human! “Bigot!” she muttered furiously. “It’s better than being a fucking machine!”

It was obvious from his expression that her shaft had struck home with a precision equal to his. For several moments he looked so furious that fear tickled at the base of her spine. Finally, he merely pulled the door open and departed, locking the door behind him. A combination of relief and uneasiness washed through her when she heard the sound of the lock.

He was right. She
was
stupid or she wouldn’t have allowed her temper to overrule her head. Whatever else the company had told them about the cyborgs that might or might not be true, there was no doubt that they were unpredictable. Insulting the one cyborg who knew her dangerous secret was probably one of the least intelligent things she’d ever done.

She struggled with the bonds for a time but found that the more she tugged and pulled the tighter the knots became. After resting for a few moments, she began trying to move herself into a position where she could use her teeth to loosen the knots. An earnest effort failed to produce any results, however, and she subsided to rest again and consider her options.

Regardless of what he’d said, she thought she would prefer to take her chances on the planet than with the cyborgs. Whatever they had in mind to use to erase their presence here, she didn’t believe they would destroy the entire planet even if they’d had the weapons to do so, and she was willing to stake her life that they didn’t. If she could only free herself and escape the ship undetected, then cross the clearing to the wooded area beyond, she could hide herself until The Company sent ships to discover what had become of the mission.

That was a lot of ifs, particularly when he’d removed her locator--both locators.

Mentally, she called up an image of what she’d seen before and since capture, both of the compound and the ship. The compound had been no more than crude wooden huts, but the entire area was surrounded by a wooden palisade built from the trees cut to clear the compound. That constituted a very large area to navigate undetected, ending with a wall that would be difficult, to say the least, to scale.

More immediately, there was the problem of getting loose and finding her way out of the ship. She didn’t think it had been locked down yet. The cabin where Dante had imprisoned her seemed to be a good distance from the workings of the ship, but she’d been hearing occasional movements that she thought must mean they were still preparing for departure.

The thought had scarcely entered her mind when she heard footsteps directly outside in the corridor. She held her breath, wondering if Dante were returning. The steps passed the cabin door, however, halting close by. In a few moments, she heard movement in the cabin adjoining the one where she was and then in the facilities. Her heart leapt in her throat and she craned to stare at the door Dante had told her led to the facilities.

There was no lock on it … which explained why he’d decided it was necessary to tie her even though he’d locked the outer door.

She lay perfectly still, hardly daring to breathe until she heard the cyborg leave once more.

When the last of his footsteps faded along the corridor, she studied her situation and began trying to work out a contortion that would bring her teeth within range of the bindings. She’d broken a sweat by the time she managed it. Every muscle and joint in her body was screaming at the unaccustomed strain. Ignoring the pain, she began gnawing at the knots.

She’d begun to think she was beginning to make some headway when she became aware of a vibration communicating itself through the hull, the frame of the bed and the mattress. She stopped, gasping for breath, hoping against hope that she’d imagined it and that it was nothing more than muscle fatigue.

It wasn’t muscle fatigue. The vibration rapidly became more and more pronounced. A whine joined it. Within a few moments the entire cabin around her was quaking as if it would disintegrate any moment.

They were taking off.

Mindlessly, she began tugging at the knots again.

A heaviness settled over her, pressing against her harder and harder until she could scarcely breathe. Abruptly, the heaviness vanished. She began to float upward.

She’d levitated perhaps two inches from the bed when the artificial gravity kicked in and she hit the mattress once more.

She lay gasping for breath, staring at the shaking hull above her head while the vibrations slowed and finally subsided altogether.

They’d taken off.

She’d lost her only chance of escape.

Amaryllis wasn’t certain how much time passed while she lay on the bunk, too shocked and dismayed even to think beyond the litany that kept running through her mind that she’d lost any chance of escape. After a while, her training kicked in and a calm settled over her.

She couldn’t escape, at least not until the cyborgs reached their final destination.

Once there, she could assess the situation again. They had ships. She might have a chance of stealing one and escaping. If not, she might have a chance of stowing away on an outbound vessel and escaping from it once it reached deep space.

There was no point in even trying to come up with options, however, now, when she had no idea of what she would be up against. What she needed to do was to try to assess her current situation and figure out a way to survive.

Dante was the only one who knew that she was human.

If she killed him, there would be no one to give her away.

She cringed inside at the thought and struggled to banish her revulsion. She’d destroyed dozens of cyborgs. There was no reason to be squeamish about it now, particularly when this one represented a serious threat to her.

What would be the repercussions of doing so, however? Would he be missed? If so, would they immediately suspect that there was a human on board? Or would they think it was one of their own?

She shook that problem off. She could face that when the time came. The problem was she had no weapons and no idea if she could find one. She didn’t have much hope of overcoming him in hand to hand unless she could take him off guard.

And what were the chances of that now that she’d shown her hand?

Not good, she decided, but she could do nothing but wait anyway. Maybe, over time, she could lull his suspicions?

Maybe the key to doing so was already in her hands?

He’d hidden her. There had to be risk involved in doing that, and yet he’d gone to great lengths already to keep any of the others from discovering what he had.

Why?

The only possibility that presented itself was that he’d taken the notion that he wanted her for himself.

She dismissed it. It seemed too farfetched a theory. It kept teasing at her mind, though, little snatches of memory feeding it.

He hadn’t saved the readings of the scan. She’d been too unnerved at the time to realize it, but she remembered now that he’d studied the read out and then shut the device off without saving the readings to memory … except in his own memory.

He’d been angry after he’d taken her to the showers, accusing. She’d been too surprised and angry herself by his strange behavior to figure out exactly what he’d been accusing her of, but it occurred to her after a while that he’d implied that she was trying to use her training against him … the art of deadly seduction.

She’d never tried that particular method of overcoming a cyborg. She’d thought the entire idea ludicrous if these things were, as The Company claimed, merely defective machines. A woman might seduce a man and overcome him while he was distracted, but a machine? Anyway, she didn’t feel confident enough in her femininity to consider seduction a realistic possibility for her. It seemed more likely that any attempt would be ignored, or worse, a source of amusement.

She was so deep in thought, she hardly registered the sound of approaching footsteps until they halted outside the cabin door. The sound of the keys being depressed jerked her from her abstraction, however. She held her breath, staring at the door as it opened.Dante stepped through and closed the door behind him.

Moving to the bunk, he settled beside her and began tugging at the restraint. His lips tightened into a thin line when he saw the results of her efforts to free herself.

Pain shot through her arms as the feeling began to return when he’d untied her.

Carefully, he lowered her arms, examining her wrists. She would’ve jerked free except that she had no use of her arms at the moment.

It was just as well, she realized, mentally kicking herself.

She was supposed to be trying to lull him into a false sense of security.

Her wrists, she saw as he examined them, were raw and bruised from her efforts to free herself. “That was….” He hesitated as he met her gaze. “An exercise in futility.”

“I didn’t know that until I tried though,” she retorted tightly.

“You should have deduced that I had tied a knot adequate to hold you.”

“But then I’m not a cyborg.”

He said nothing for several moments. “No, you’re not.”

Amaryllis reigned in her temper with an effort.

When she said nothing more, he returned his attention to her wrists. “You have done more damage than I had thought possible. You skin is … delicate. Will this repair itself without aid of medicines?”

“In time.”

“How much time?”

“How would I know that?”

He looked both surprised by her comment and irritated. “You do not have nanos?”“For infection and internal, life threatening injuries, yes.”

To her relief, he released her hands at last, settling them on her thighs. “I did not intend to cause you injury, but to protect you from….”

When he didn’t finish, Amaryllis asked, “Your fellow cyborgs?”

“Yourself. To keep you from taking foolhardy chances.”

Amaryllis gave him a look. “If you have such a low opinion of humans, why are you … doing this?”

He studied her a long moment and finally shrugged, rising from the bunk. “I must return to my duties before I am missed. I will bring food for you when I return.”

When he’d gone, Amaryllis moved to the door of the facilities. After listening to make certain no one was about, she went in, took care of her needs and rushed back to the cabin. She would’ve liked to soothe her hurts with cool water, but she didn’t dare linger too long in the facilities.

She’d had worse and endured.

The burning subsided in her wrists after a while. Exhausted from the pain of her injuries and the shocks she’d endured one after another since their craft had crashed, too wary even to consider leaving the cabin and, despite everything, bored beyond belief, Amaryllis finally curled up on the cot and allowed sleep to overtake her. She woke when the sound of the key lock being punched alerted her to imminent company.

As much as she hated to admit it, relief flooded her when she saw that it was Dante. As promised, he brought food for her--enough for several days from the bounty of it. There was no place to sit except the floor or the bunk. She chose the bunk, folding her legs and bracing her back against the bulkhead. Dante settled beside her at the other end of the bunk, watching her.

“Have you eaten?”

“Yes. This is for you.”

She was starving, but discomfited by his attention. “Where are we going?” she asked finally, more to distract him than because she expected him to answer.

He hesitated. “We discovered a world well beyond the human colonies.”

“In unexplored space?” she asked, surprised.

“Not now.”

Amaryllis frowned thoughtfully. “The Company was certain the cyborg stronghold was near the outer rim.”

“They were wrong. Does that surprise you?”

“Not particularly. They’re wrong more often than not. That’s what comes from having a superiority complex.”

Amusement entered his eyes. “You think we are guilty of the same.”

It wasn’t a question. Amaryllis shrugged.

“We were created with all the advantages of human beings and none of the disadvantages.”

“You think so?”

That effectively silenced him for several moments. “I am as human as you are.

Why do you consider me a machine and yourself … human?”

He couldn’t have said anything more certain to cut her to the quick than that.

Amaryllis lost her appetite. Ignoring the question, she very carefully covered the food and looked around for someplace to put it.

“You are finished?”

“Yeah.”

Dante frowned. “You have hardly eaten any. No wonder you are so tiny.”

Amaryllis glared at him.

Something flickered in his eyes. After a moment, he took the food from her wordlessly, rose from the bunk and placed the containers in his locker.

She was staring at the floor when he returned to the bunk. She studiously ignored him as he stood over her, eyeing her curiously.

Finally, he settled on the bunk beside her. “You are offended.”

“You are so fucking observant.”

His brows rose. “Why were you reconstructed with bionics? Were you injured in duty?” “I don’t want to talk about it,” Amaryllis snarled.

“You have no data banks,” he observed pensively.

“No shit.” Thank
God
he couldn’t access her memories!

“The gutter language does not become you.”

“Does it bother you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t give a fuck,” Amaryllis snapped. “I
feel
like using it.”

“Why?”

“Why don’t you just go … recharge or something?”

His face tightened with anger. “I derive energy from food, the same as you.”

“Really?” Amaryllis said sarcastically. “I had no idea we had so much in common.”